


Danny’s His Corpses Piñata Stuffing

by GothMoth



Series: Dango to the Phango [4]
Category: Danny Phantom
Genre: Corpses, Danny Fucking Dies, Ectobiology, Electrocution, Fully dead au, Gen, Identity Reveal, Injury Recovery, Light Angst, Major Character Injury, Mild Hurt/Comfort, Near Death Experiences, Possession, Rewrite, ghost hunger
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-11-22
Updated: 2019-11-22
Packaged: 2021-02-17 23:48:34
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 22,404
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/21518446
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/GothMoth/pseuds/GothMoth
Summary: Danny has his accident and straight up dies, but his corpse is still intact and Fenton’s are never normal. Things suitably go down hill from there.
Relationships: Jack Fenton/Maddie Fenton
Series: Dango to the Phango [4]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/1548205
Comments: 27
Kudos: 269





	Danny’s His Corpses Piñata Stuffing

**Author's Note:**

> Fully Dead AU + Ghost Hunger + Identity Reveal + Someone Dies

“DANNY!!!!!”.

“oh Holy crap! There, what?”.

“Oh no no no no no no no...”.

Danny groans, face falling forwards and nearly face-planting into the floor, but a strange tingling feeling and snapping his eyes open to see his head is actually _inside the floor_ makes him yelp and jerk up; resulting in him spinning in mid-air. 

Tucker grabs at his hand, “dude you, your- Your fucking body looks weird”, Tucker tries to pull Danny forward but his hand phases through Danny’s making both of them yelp. 

Meanwhile, Sam is trying not to cry and cradling Danny’s actual body’s head in her lap, but Tucker’s voice makes her look up and finally notice the colour inverted Danny with blueish-green skin floating in the air. “D-D-Danny?”. 

Danny yelping at Tucker, “holy crap I _went through you_ ”. At the same time as Tucker speaks almost silently, “you went through me, oh holy shit”. Before both look to Sam’s stammering voice, Tucker paling and rushing over to the body. Danny yelps again and gapes, trying to move closer but effectively only spinning in the air. 

Tucker looking back to Danny and pointing at the body, “dude fuck, you, you need to get back in there. What the fuck”. 

Danny throws his hands to the side, “I can’t even move! How the heck-!”. Tucker moves and grabs at Danny’s hand, trying to pull him over only to phase through him again, “stop doing that dude”.

“I _don’t know how_!”. 

Sam jerks up and moves over to grab Danny’s other hand, which thankfully stays solid or tangible or whatever. Tucker moving to push at Danny’s back and the two successfully get him over to his body. Which he grabs at, looking at his friends a bit frantically while they hold his shoulders to keep him from floating off, “how the _fuck_ am I supposed to get back in or whatever the fuck?!? What is even going on?!?”. 

“I don’t fucking know dude just try shit, anything”. 

Said trying just results in his hands phasing through his body a few times as he waves them around trying to get whatever the fuck to work. 

Tucker jerks his head around, hadn’t Mr. Fenton made gloves or something that stop this go through thing? Completely ignoring Sam glancing at him with confusion as he rushes off and starts digging through all the crap in the lab. Thanking everything that he finds the glove things rather quickly and rushes back over to Danny. Sam nods curtly and takes a pair; both putting them on and grabbing Danny’s shoulders with one hand and his body with the other. 

Danny yelps a little at his hand, which was phased through his body, fizzing and sparking; yanking on it to find he can’t pull it out. “Now it won’t come out!”.

Sam snapping, “that’s the point Danny!”. 

Tucker speaking as the two friends push down on Danny, basically squishing him against his body, “just try to go in or something dude!”. 

“What the fuck do you think I’ve been doing?!?”.

Sam snaps, “shut up and keep trying you idiot!”. Everyone yelps at fizzing and sparking on Danny’s chests, Sam and Tucker promptly pushing more aggressively before face-planting into Danny’s body and the floor when Danny seemingly ‘fuses’ back into his body with a near painfully loud electrical zap sound. 

Danny flails his limbs a bit, which are thankfully covered in white, not black, before staggering up. Sam and Tucker scrambling to get up and catching Danny as he pitches sideways and nearly slams into the ground. 

Tucker squeezing his shoulder, “dude don’t. You just had, like, a fucking out of body experience. Maybe don’t move”. 

Danny just nods and groans, he felt _wrong_. Like he was wrapped to tightly in bandaging or blankets. Looking down, he needed to get out of this damn suit. Sam bats his hand away from the zipper though, “don’t, just, fucking hell don’t you ever scare us like that again”, glaring at him before shaking her head, “just relax”. 

Tucker nods as they heave Danny up, “jumpsuit’s a ghost hunter thing right? So maybe it’s all that’s holding you in there right now. I don’t know dude. It ain’t worth the risk”. 

Danny nods tiredly and lets his friends carry him up the stairs. All three collapsing into Danny’s bed. Sam and Tucker passing out seconds later. But no matter how much he damn wishes he could, Danny just _can’t_. 

Sighing and squirming out from under his friends. Only getting a few steps away from the bed before he starts sinking through the ground, yelping and looking down at his waist before grabbing at the bed to pull himself back up. Looking at his friends' hands and promptly taking Tucker’s gloves. Looking said gloves over after putting them on and cautiously taking a few steps away. Sighing when he doesn’t start randomly going through things, “fuck me”, shaking his head and quietly creeping back down to the lab. 

Glancing at the now functioning portal with apprehension and a bit of hate, before walking over to the ECG his folks keep and hooking himself up to it. 

Sinking to the ground and running his hands through his hair at the monotoned screaming tone; no rhythmic beeping. Lifting his head and staring at the little screen showing a flatline. Even a damn idiot would know what that meant, _dead_. 

Grabbing at the zipper on his suit and pulling it down, there’s no way some damn clothing was ‘holding him together’. Only to gape at his left arm as he pushed the jumpsuit arm down. Whispering, “that...that should hurt. Fuck that should hurt _so much_...Yet I...I can’t even feel it”. Poking at the charred black skin, little patches of an unsightly red visible in spots on his exposed shoulder and chest; his shirt having been seemingly burned away. Taking off one of the metal gloves and pulling the jumpsuit off that arm entirely, lifting up the crispy looking rather shrivelled hand and bending the fingers. The smell of coal and burnt flesh threatening to make him gag. 

Deciding to take off the other glove so he can get out of the suit to look himself over results in him yelping and snatching said glove back up. Having seen his ghosts? or whatever the fuck separating from his body everywhere where he wasn’t wearing his suit still.

Leaning his head back and banging it against the lab wall, after he ‘reattaches’ to his body, “oh you have got to be kidding me. The suit is holding me in or whatever”. Pulling the suit back over his arm and zipping it up before getting up and looking to the ECG. Promptly deciding to hide it before heading back upstairs. Muttering to himself as he hugs and rubs his arms, “I can’t, won’t, tell them. They...they’ll blame themselves. I’m still, fuck, I’m still... _dead_ ”. Staring at himself in the bathroom mirror, “I’m just...puppeting around my own corpse. God fuck”, sitting down on the tiled floor, “this is so messed up”. Jerking then from hearing the front door open and going wide-eyed, “oh _fuck_ , my parents”, snapping his head down and scrambling to get up, “they _can’t_ see me in this”.

Zipping back into his room and paling a bit as he throws on a onesie, “oh no, shit, I’m a _ghost_ ”, glancing at the door and fiddling with the gloves on the onesie, they barely fit over the metal gloves, “they can’t know about this. Never. God fuck, what would they do to me?”, shivering slightly before crawling back into bed with his friends and making a damn point to pretend to be asleep. 

It really doesn’t take any time at all for him to figure out _why_ he couldn’t fall asleep. Ghosts don’t sleep after all. They don’t have biological needs is what his folks said right? Muttering at the ceiling, “fuck this is so messed up”. The only positive is that it gives him more than enough time to think over this crap. He didn’t feel _that_ different. There was just the vibrating, like he was laying on a speaker. And the tightness, which now that he thinks about it... Sitting up and pushing off the top of the onesie and taking off the metal gloves. Waiting and smiling slightly when he doesn’t instantly start going through things before unzipping the jumpsuit again. Promptly cringing at the glowing and wisping black jumpsuit seemingly floating out of his chest and feeling his bodies head fall backwards. Pulling off the whole top anyway his ghost self or whatever instantly detaching or whatever from his top half, which yes, looked very strange. Grumbling, “damnit”, and sticking his one ghostly hand into a metal glove. Pulling on half the jumpsuit before getting on the other metal glove, taking off the first and pulling on that half of the suit; zipping it closed and sighing. The tightness feeling had gone away in his upper body when his ghost or whatever had separated. Flopping to lay back down on the bed again, “so it’s literally like I’m wearing a skintight body”, snorting with mild amusement, “well I guess my body would be a perfect fit”. 

* * *

Tucker and Sam wake up to Danny fiddling with the edges of a sweater and looking in the mirror. Tucker rubs at his eyes and looking to Danny’s jumpsuit gloved hands, “dude, you could probably take that off now”. 

Sam getting up and making Danny turn to look at her, he looked rather pale, “are you okay?”.

Danny shrugs and looks back to the mirror, “I’m fine”, knowing damn well he’ll be saying that a lot in the future; lie or not. Stuffing his hands into his pockets and grumbling, “I’m going to need more turtle necks”.

Tucker gets up and shakes his head, “okay dude, I know we said you probably shouldn’t take it off, but you’re good now...right?”. 

Danny glances at Tucker, there was no way he could get away with not telling them this. Hell, he didn’t even know how he was going to play off always wearing a jumpsuit now. Swallowing, “I uh, already tried taking it off. Not a good idea. I start separating again”. 

Tucker looks at the floor, “well shit”. While Sam gives Danny an apologetic look, “maybe, maybe whatever happened just...weakened your spirit or souls connection to your body?”.

Tucker lifts his head up and nods with a smile, clapping Danny on the arm, “yeah, that’s got to be it! Your folks jumpsuits are literally made to deal with ghost stuff or whatever right? So it’s probably tethering you or whatever”. 

Danny decidedly says nothing while looking at Sam who nods, “we could even pass off the suit as fashion after a while. Not like your parents don’t”, grimacing slightly, “just maybe wear accessories or something as well”. 

Danny grumbles as he pulls his shoes on over the jumpsuit boots, “yeah well, for now, I’m hiding it”.

Tucker shakes his head and points at Danny’s feet, “that can’t be comfortable. And dude, your folks are going to be ecstatic over you wearing your jumpsuit all the time”, snickering, “just like them”.

Danny glares at Tucker, “fuck you Tuck”. Before everyone pauses as Tucker goes to lean against Danny but just _phases through him._

Danny cringes as Tucker lands on his ass, “sorry”. Tucker gapes up at him, “sorry? Dude whatever, holy shit you still have the go through thingy”. 

Danny just cringed again before moving to help Tucker get up, seriously glad he doesn’t just go through him again. Tucker squeezing his shoulder, “do it again”. 

Danny glares at him, “I don’t know how Tuck. This isn’t a good thing”. 

Tucker rolls his eyes, “oh bullshit, you’ve got fucking powers now”. Danny has to resist snapping about how he was also fucking dead now, so excuse him if he wasn’t exactly _happy_ about that. 

Sam straightens out her clothing in the mirror, eyeballing Danny all the while, “must be because the veil is thinner for you now”. 

Danny sighs, honestly wishing that was the case. Grabbing at the door nod to head downstairs only for the, starting to get pretty familiar, tingling to start up. Glaring at the door nob and trying again only to go through it again. Groaning and going to bang his head on the door only to just fall through the door and basically tumble down the stairs. 

Sam and Tucker cringe, Sam commenting, “okay, maybe this might be a problem”. Tucker chuckles slightly before they open the door, “naw, we just get to help our friend learn to be a damn superhero or some shit”. 

Maddie rushes over to Danny as he groans and sits himself up on the floor, “you okay sweetie?”. 

Danny nods and hides his hands behind his back, “yeah, yup. Totally fine”. And scrambling to stand up, Tucker chuckling at him as his two friends come down the stairs. Danny grumbling, “prick”, before they head into the kitchen. 

Maddie was about to comment on how pale Danny looked when Jack comes running up the lab stairs, “Mads! The portal! It’s working!”. 

“ _What!?!?_!”, she leaves the kids to their own devices, they’re old enough to look after themselves, and heads down the stairs. 

Danny and his friends eat quickly and decide staying in the house was probably not a good idea. Purely to avoid Danny’s folks going off about ghosts and the portal to them. Especially since they were the ones who got it working in the first place. 

The three only walk a little ways till Danny shivers and goes slightly cross-eyed at watching his breath fog up, “what in th-”, cutting himself off when all three see a glowing floating green octopus thing. 

Tucker blinks, “uh, is that a floating octopus? Is it glowing?”. All three going wide-eyed as the thing shrieks and lunges Its tentacles at them. Danny shouting as they run away, “I think that’s the least of our worries Tuck!”. 

Tucker whispers at Danny as they slip into an alleyway, “you don’t happen to have any of your parents crap on you?”. 

“Why the fuck would I Tuck? I get mocked enough over their profession as it is”. 

All three still and mutter “aw fuck”, as the ‘octopus’ spots them and shrieks again. Tucker whacking Danny, “well surely they’ve taught you _something_ to deal with ghosts”. 

Danny flicks his eyes to Tucker, “are you asking me to fight a goddamn _ghost_???”.

“You’re the one wearing a ghost hunter jumpsuit dude”. 

“Fuck you”. 

All three dive to the side as the ‘octopus’ lunges at them, promptly going through the wall as It misses them. Tucker blinks, and starts smacking Danny a bit frantically, “shit right, powers. Use your powers or something. Hopefully you have something offensive”. 

“Tuck, how many times do I have to say that _I don’t know how_?”. 

Sam practically shouting, “then learn!”, as the ‘octopus’ phases back through the wall and lunges at them again. Tucker and Danny manage to roll out of the way rather sloppily but the ‘octopus’ pins Sam to the wall. She tries hitting at It but just goes through It every time. 

Danny, being reckless and impulsive, moves on instinct and promptly punches the ‘octopus’. Stunning It enough to make It forget to go intangible and getting slammed into the wall. 

Tucker shouts, “Hell yeah! It’s go through thing doesn’t work on you!”, while Sam rolls away. Danny kicks at the downed ghost, fist balled up and practically growling, “don’t. Touch. My. Friends”. The two friends blinking as Danny actually chases after the ghost when It seems to be fleeing, the ‘octopus’ looking startled. They stick their heads around the alley corner catching Danny punching It again before It phases through Danny’s house, Danny kicking at the wall. Both of them are pretty sure Danny would have followed It if he actually knew how. 

Tucker chuckling a bit awkwardly, “well alright then. You go Danny”, looking at Sam, “you saw his eyes too right?”.

Sam nods, “green yeah. And he never fights”. 

Tucker looks back at Danny, who sticks up his middle fingers at the wall but stands up straight, “think his personalities a bit ghostly too?”. 

Sam watches as Danny turns around looking rather aggressive and baring his teeth a bit before brightening up at seeing them, muttering at Tucker quickly, “oh yeah. Definitely”. 

Danny walks over quickly, looking Sam over, “you guys fine?”. Ignoring the slightly weird and concerned looks they give him before they both nod and smile at him. “Good”, looking around some, “um, still wanna go to the park?”. 

Sam and Tucker exchange a glance and shrug. Tucker punching Danny’s shoulder, “sure, and that was awesome dude”. Danny rubs at his neck and looks like he should be blushing, shrugging, “I don’t know about that. It didn’t seem very smart”. 

Tucker chuckles as they start walking down the sidewalk, “and nether’s Dash. I’d still be impressed if anyone punched him”. 

Danny shakes his head, Sam and Tucker both blink and then start snickering at him. Quirking an eyebrow, “what?”. 

Tucker and Sam glance at the light post he had just walked through, Tucker snickering, “you didn’t even notice did you?”.

“Huh?”.

Sam shakes her head and starts walking again, “you walked through a pole Danny”.

“Goddamnit”. 

* * *

When Danny gets up the next morning he knows something’s not right. He’d noticed it getting progressively worse through the night. He was _tired_. But not, like, the normal kind of tired. It felt more like a weakness, like after overworking your muscles and feeling like jello the next day. His mind wasn’t tired at all. The plus side was his ‘powers’, or whatever, weren’t acting up as often. 

Groaning and sitting up in bed. Laying down was nice even if it was technically pointless. Sighing at the clock, at least it was about seven now, so it wasn’t weird if he got up. Playing Doom had gotten boring hours ago. Though he’s got no clue what he’s going to do. At least eating was something to do, even if he wasn’t hungry and mentally pushing away the _why_ for that. Pulling his onesie over the jumpsuit, and taking the steps a bit slowly. God, he was tired. 

Maddie blinks at Danny as he comes into the kitchen. He looked like...well, like shit, if she’s blunt. He was so pale, more than even Sam, which would be a bit of a feat if it wasn’t worrying. His hair was a complete mess, and not in the ‘I don’t care to brush it’ kind of way. Frowning at him, “sweetie? Maybe you should sit down”. 

Danny snaps his head up and gulps a little, was he acting weird or something? Did they know what happened with the portal? “Um, why?”.

“I think you might be sick sweetie, hold on”, Maddie turns around missing Danny’s worried frown as she looks around for a thermometer. 

Danny tries to wave her off, utterly failing at seeming calm and collected when he spots the thermometer. If his pulse was gone, who knows what his temperature would be. “No no, I’m sure I’m fine or it’s just a little bug or something”. 

Maddie puts her hands on her hips and glares a bit before holding the thermometer out to him, “I don’t think so. At least let me check”. The two sit in silence, Danny tying to think of a way out of this when Jack sticks his head in, “maybe it’s because of the portal! There’s got to be more ecto-energy in the house now. Maybe Danny-boy’s just more sensitive to that stuff! So he needs to adjust!”. 

Danny’s not sure if he should agree with that or not, “uhhhh”. He promptly decides that he probably shouldn’t as his mom speaks, “that would be all the more reason to check him out, and-”, Maddie cuts herself off and squints a little. Jack always forgot the lab key, having to ask her for it, “Jack...was the lab locked?”. 

Danny mentally pales, pretty sure his actual skin can’t get any paler, while his dad shakes his head. His mom looking to him, “have you been in the lab lately?”. 

Jack is less bothered, sometimes younger minds saw what older ones didn’t, “oh! Did you kids figure out what was wrong with it?!?”. Maddie glares at him, “they’re not supposed to be down there Jack”. Jack waves her off, “oh what’s a little lost safety precautions in the name of science!”. Maddie crosses her arms and shakes her head before looking back at Danny, “well? I could just pull the footage”. 

Danny gulps, that would be _bad_. Rubbing at his neck awkwardly, “um...yes?”. He cringes a bit over his mom sighing. But for once he’s glad for his dads' excitability, “HA! He’s a little genius Mads! How’d you fix it?”. 

Maddie was going to basically shove the thermometer at Danny but his neck rubbing makes her noticed his gloves, they looked like their black jumpsuit gloves. Instead asking a question of her own, “are you wearing your jumpsuit?”.

Danny’s practically mentally chanting ‘fuck’ though maybe if he appeals to their pride or whatever it’ll get him off the hook for at least a little. Clearing his throat, “I mean, I know I’m not supposed to go down there, but you guys were so bummed out and I was safe about it”, that last bit was a total lie considering walking _inside_ one of his parents inventions, which were known to be temperamental, was stupidly dangerous, “the whole ‘don’t touch anything ecto without protection’ rule”. 

Maddie sighs and pinches her nose, well at least that was something, “well I'm glad you listened to us on one thing. Why are you still wearing it though?”.

Jack beams, “maybe Danny-boy’s finally got the Fenton family love of spandex!”. He knew at least one of them would see the light someday!

Danny blinks, come to think of it, it was oddly comfortable. No way was he going to admit that though, nope, never. Though he probably should take off and trash the clothing he’s got on underneath it, being all burnt and shit. “It’s...not bad”, shrugging and running his right hand over the left, that he knew probably still looked like an overcooked hotdog. Then making an excuse up on the fly, “and with the portal just turning on, no dad I don’t really know what I did to it I just poked it, figured it might be better to just stay in the protective stuff, yeah?”. 

Maddie nods, that was reasonable enough. No one exactly knew what being near a functioning ghost portal would do, especially to someone unprotected. “Maybe you fixed a loose panel or screw, which while thanks, you still shouldn’t have been down there. And-”, pointing at Danny’s pale face, “-you clearly have been affected by it”. 

Danny can’t help but think, no fucking shit, it _killed me_. Eyeballing the thermometer as she pushes it at him and crosses her arms, only to get saved by his two friends as they practically kick in the door. 

Sam and Tucker can practically see and feel Danny begging them to save his ass. So like good friends, Tucker speed walks over and grabs Danny by the arm, “dude, you gotta see the weird sh-stuff that flute guys doing in the park”, then functionally dragging Danny out the door. Danny giving a slightly apologetic smile to his parents, “I’ll be home later I guess, see ya!”. 

Maddie frowns and shakes her head, clearly his friends could tell he wasn’t well? Hopefully they’ll keep a close eye on him. Those two, while strange, were pretty trustworthy. Nodding to herself and deciding that if Danny comes home looking better, then his guess is probably right. But if he’s the same, he is _absolutely_ getting a proper Fenton family check-up. 

Sam and Tucker stop in their walking as soon as they get around a corner, both definitely noticing that Danny’s lagging behind a bit; though both pretty pleased Danny managed to not go through them as they practically dragged him off. 

Turning to him, Tucker comments, “you look like shit dude”. While Sam asks, “did you sleep?”. 

Danny grumbles, “thanks asshole”, as he leans back against a wall, “folks know about accidentally turning on the portal and me wearing the jumpsuit they made me”.

Tucker grumbles, “well shit. How much trouble are you in?”. While Sam glares at Danny for avoiding her question. 

Danny shrugs and pushes off the wall to start walking towards the park, never know his folks might check they’re actually there, and it was on the way to school; this was a supremely shitty Monday. “Not sure. Dad’s just excited, mom didn’t get past saying she wasn’t happy about it”. 

Tucker pats Danny on the shoulder, managing not to trip when he goes through Danny on the third pat, “well your welcome then. Hopefully they'll be not pissed after school. Also, you need to work on that”. 

“Fuck off”. Sam and Tucker promptly having the catch Danny as he trips over a rock. Danny grumbling, “now why couldn’t I just accidentally go through that instead”. 

Sam tilts her head, “well it did save you from face-planting into a light pole yesterday”, squinting at Danny as he regains his footing, “it makes sense you might not feel so good after the accident, but are you okay?”. 

Tucker pokes him on the cheek, “you are super pale. Like if Sam wasn’t worried she’d be drooling”. Sam hits Tucker for that, making Danny chuckle. 

Danny doesn’t want them worrying but he knew he looked shit. Felt like it too. Shrugging, “just tired guys”.

Tucker rolls his eyes, speaking full of sarcasm, “uh-huh”. While Sam shakes her head, “aka you didn’t sleep and are thusly exhausted. Meaning you’ll probably get in trouble for napping in class”. 

Danny chuckles and smirks a little, his friends knew him well but he knew that was _not_ why he felt so drained and whipped out. Though he looks around as they get to the park, looking to change the subject, “I'm guessing the flute guy was just a cover story?”. 

Sam glares at him but Tucker smirks and nods, “yup, you clearly wanted away from your folks”. The three move to sit on one of the benches. Sam poking Danny, “maybe this idiot should nap here _before_ school. Not like any of us have anything for anyone to steal”. 

Danny’s perfectly content to lay across their laps, as friends they were probably weirdly close to other people but it worked for them. That thought makes him feel like a bit of a dick for hiding shit from them. Raising an eyebrow at Tucker squinting at him, feeling a little bit worried when Tucker puts a hand on his forehead, “dude, you’re _freezing_ ”. 

Danny shrugs, touches his own forehead and shrugs again, “I feel fine?”. Sam shakes her head at him when she touches his forehead, “you’re an ice cube. You probably can’t tell through the suit”. 

Tucker looks around before basically yanking Danny’s sweater off, ignoring Danny’s indignant “hey!”. Tucker pokes where they all know the zipper is, “you never did show us the separating thing and then _you_ can check your skin. Not like anyone else will be here”. 

Danny knows damn well Tucker just poking the zipper rather than just straight up unzipping it, was him being nice and letting Danny do it himself. They could be more stubborn than his entire family. Sighing after glancing around and fiddling with the hidden zipper, having to blink away the blurriness in his eyes a few times. Pretty well instantly seeing his ghostly black jump-suited chest separating from his body, though making sure to keep the left side of his jumpsuit close to his shirt and skin, so they wouldn’t see the ruined section of the shirt. Pulling the right sides fingers out of the glove and pulling his arm out. Nodding his white-haired head at his technically two arms. The ‘human’ body one basically laying limp and waving at them slightly with the ‘ghost’ one. 

Sam frowns, “okay, clearly your ghost? has to be literally in your body to control it”. 

Tucker shakes his head as he pokes at the ghostly arm, “now can you take _this_ jumpsuit off?”. 

Danny shrugs, “fuck if I know”, then restraining a chuckle at Tucker just grabbing his limp ‘human’ arm and touching it to Danny’s head. “Tuck, I can’t feel shit without my ghost or whatever in it”. 

Tucker shrugs, “yeah, well your arm’s cold too...both of them. Which fine, ghost one probably makes sense”. 

Sam raises an eyebrow, “how do you get it back together? Cause we do not have the gloves”. 

Danny sort of just grabs the limb with the ghostly arm and uses his still normal jumpsuit covered left hand to maneuverer his right back into the jumpsuit and zipping it all back shut. Sticking his hand out to Tucker and opening and closing it, “tada, now give me my sweater back. I’d prefer to put off people noticing the jumpsuit as long as possible”. 

Tucker chuckles but relents, handing over the garment, “whelp, I guess you’re doomed to forever wearing three layers”. 

Danny shrugs, “I dunno Tuck, haven’t actually tried taking off my t-shirt and shit. Prob do that tonight”. While Sam pushes him to lay back down across their laps, “sleep you idiot”. Danny just rolls his eyes, “don’t think that’s gonna happen, sorry not sorry”. 

Sam just shakes her head and the three sit in silence for a while before she speaks up again, “so your ghost, spirit, soul, however we or more so you want to call it; is clearly not super grounded to your body anymore”.

Danny snorts, eyes closed, “no shit. Honestly, something tells me that if I hadn’t been wearing this jumpsuit, I probably wouldn’t have even been able to get back in and stay in at all. Being that it’s a special material and all”. 

Tucker and Sam nod in agreement. Neither really wanting to think on the what-ifs of that situation. 

After a bit, Tucker speaks up himself, “any clue why you’re cold? ‘Cause you are really cold”. 

Danny sighs and opens his eyes, rolling them at Tucker, “no, why would I? I didn’t even notice. Still can’t tell by the by”. 

Sam frowns but pushes the boys to get up at seeing the time, “well, you’re folks are going to notice eventually. Just hope the patented Fenton suits _do_ indeed block out hot or cold temperatures. Also, we’re gonna be late if we stick ‘round here any longer. You didn’t get a wink of sleep did you?”. 

Danny smirks and brushes imaginary dirt off his baggy jeans, “now why would I? And yeah, I know”, pointing at Tucker, “that’s basically what y’all saved me from this morning. The thermometer”. Sure he wasn’t sure his temperature was off, but considering... So now he had a school day to figure out an excuse. Seriously doubting his mom’s just going to drop it. They may be a little work focused, but they did care, care a lot actually. 

Sam glares at Danny, “so you _knew_ your temperature was funky“.

Danny rolls his eyes as they start walking towards the school, “I guessed. Makes sense that things would be funky Sam”. Sam just rolls her eyes but glances at him worriedly. He looked like shit, way too pale and concerningly cold. 

Danny raises an eyebrow at Sam as they leave chemistry when she shoves a thermometer into his pocket. Sam glares at him, “it’s better you know, that way we can come up with something. Especially since sleep deprivation does _not_ equal good plan creation”, pausing for a beat, “do you even have an excuse figured out yet?”. 

Danny shrugs, no he damn didn’t, his head kind of felt like walking through mud at this point. Paying attention to classes wasn’t even something he felt like doing. Everyone was talking too fast and he was starting to notice other things, really distracting things. Everything was more defined when his eyes weren’t blurred over, smells practically were bombarding him and everything was so loud. But at the same time, he was occasionally just _losing_ his senses at random. For a while he couldn’t even feel his feet walking across the ground and basically had to stare at his shoes. He was not having a good time here. Shaking his head at her but heading towards one of the more secluded bathrooms, though none of them really gave a damn if anyone saw the three walk in together. “I’ve got nothing currently. Other than blaming being so close to the portal when it started up. That worked somewhat for the whole looking like shit problem”. 

Tucker shakes his head with a smirk as he leans against the closed bathroom door. Before frowning slightly and really looking Danny over. He actively looked worse. People who got run over in movies looked better than he did and his speech was kind of...slurred. Not to mention how slowly he was moving and responding to things. “You look more shit-like by the way”. 

Danny rolls his eyes, “fuck youuu too Tuck”, before sitting next to Sam on the floor and sticking the thermometer into his mouth. At least with them they knew weird shit had happened to him and he knew that literally nothing could make them turn their backs on him. Plus, they weren’t ghost hunters, and Danny’s absolutely sure he’s just straight up a ghost. Staring at the numbers on the beeping thermometer only confirms that more to him, reading 19C. Grumbling at the little stick, “well damn”.

Tucker cranes his head and pushes his glasses up, nodding, “like I said dude, fucking ice cube”. Before whipping out his PDA and Googling away. Frowning at the result, “Danny dude, uh, you have about the same temperature as a corpse”. 

Danny just nods and rubs his neck, making it obvious that he already knew that. Sam squints at him, “you assumed that was the case didn’t you?”, Sam glares at him as he looks around guiltily, “Danny what’s going on? Why would you assume that?”.

Danny grumbles, “now you’re sounding like my mom. Geez. Just what else would be a likely possibility?”. 

Sam rolls her eyes, easily recognising that line of bullshit, “what’s. Going. On. Danny”. 

Tucker mutters at his PDA, “I mean, he probably was dead for a bit. Probably still a little dead now. Dead enough to have a solid ghost”. Sam glares at him, “don’t give him an excuse”, before going back to glaring at Danny as she gets up, “well?”. 

Danny shrugs and goes to stand, right leg promptly going through the floor, yelping as they catch him and pull him up. Danny grumbles at his leg, “well besides _going through random crap_. Which is still _very annoying_ ”, glaring at Tucker, “which again, _I can’t control_ ”. 

Tucker actually glares at Danny himself now, “dodging dude. Don't”. The worst thing was Danny dodging meant it was something bad, possibly really bad. Danny was horrible for shrugging off anything genuinely bothering him. He ignored and hid a broken arm for an entire day once. Sure they’d definitely pick up on that now, being older, but still. 

Danny sighs and looks between his two friends, he wasn’t about to get out of this and really the only explanation he had for why he assumed his temperature would be exactly or around a corpses, was the whole dead body thing. But again, he didn’t really want them knowing that. Even if Tucker seemed oddly okay with the idea of him being kinda dead. But all dead? That’s gotta be less okay. He doesn’t want them feeling bad, but what’s he gonna say? He can’t really think up anything at the moment. 

Both of them glare at him just standing there and blinking at them, clearly trying to think up some excuse or another. Sam snaps, “we _will_ strip you down and check you over if we have to”. After a little bit Danny cringes and puts up his hands, “that’s, uh, not necessarily guys”, Danny looks down with a quirked eyebrow, muttering, “not sure I want to know what would happen if I took the jumpsuit off entirely”. Both Sam and Tucker frown at that, not really wanting to have to go through shoving Danny back into his own body again. 

Danny looks back up at Sam when she clears her throat. He starts squinting slightly when his vision blurs over again. Sighing and shaking his head, “I’m fine guys”. 

“That’s fucking bullshit”. 

“Come on dude. You know we know you better than to believe that”. 

Danny rolls his eyes, “don’t we still have class?”. Both of them cross their arms at him, “ _Danny_ ”. 

“Geez, double ‘ _Danny_ ’ing me”. Both of them just glare harder at him. While he leans against the counter and plays with the glove on his left hand, if he really pressed he could sort of feel the crunchiness. Which yup, disgusting; deciding to stop toying with the limb before he outwardly grimaces. He doesn’t even get the chance to try reaffirming that he is ‘indeed fine’ and that they ‘don’t need to worry’ as he shrugs and opens his mouth. Both of them snapping before he can speak, “don’t you dare say you’re fine”. 

Danny grumbles, “I’m not getting out of this one, am I?”. 

Tucker shakes his head but smiles slightly, “not a chance dude. You were sorta dead for a bit and your body’s doing crazy superhero shit. We’re gonna be on you more”. 

“I’m not a superhero Tuck”.

“ _Danny_ ”. 

Danny sighs and slumps a bit, hiding this from them was probably going to be impossible. And it’s not like he _really wants to_. Them knowing each other’s everything was part of what made them, well, _them_. “You guys know how I am too well”. 

Sam rolls her eyes, “duh. Now what is it Danny”. 

Danny sighs again, deciding to just sit on the counter at this point. Chuckling at Tucker kicking the door aggressively, probably someone was trying to get in even if he didn’t hear anyone doing that. Sam and Tucker, meanwhile, are just a bit more worried over how delayed Danny’s reaction was. 

Danny decides that holding off is probably just going to make this more unpleasant for everyone, sighing, “fine”, looking at Sam, “you’re right, I didn’t sleep. Haven’t been able to since”. 

Sam snaps, “Danny that’s at least fifty hours”. Tucker nods, “I’d say props for the marathoning, but this isn't intentional, I’m guessing”. 

Danny shakes his head, he would love to be asleep right now if he could be. Fuck he was tired and just not being conscious for a while would be _great_. Rubbing his face, which yeah the spandex did feel nice on, “obviously. I might have an idea what insomnia feels like now. Minus that kind of tired anyway”. 

Both of them raise an eyebrow at him, Sam asking, “I thought you said you _were_ tired?”. 

Danny rubs at his neck, “different kind of tired. Like I’ve overexerted myself to the extreme”.

Tucker taps his chin, “well, I imagine being dead for a bit and restarting all that stuff would be draining on your body. Should logically be getting better, not worse though”. 

Danny frowns and fiddles with his gloves again making Sam sigh, “what else Danny?”. 

Danny sighs and points at Tucker, “that’s the thing, I don’t think I’ve restarted jack shit”. 

“Uh dude, pretty sure you stopped breathing and your heart too. So there was stuff for you to restart”, Tucker cringes a little, that had scared the absolute crap out of him. 

Danny frowns and blinks a bit, not having even noticed the lack of breathing. While Sam nods, “your blood not flowing for so long probably messed your systems up a bit. Is it a physical tiredness?”. 

Danny tilts his head, logically, right, if it was his body then his ghost or whatever wouldn’t feel it; but it very explicitly did. “Physical yeah but not, like, my body body. It’s the ghost one, I think?”. While Sam hums clearly thinking, Danny continues, “and no, I haven’t restarted shit-”. 

Sam interrupts him, “well, your ghost is probably what had to do the restarting and having a ghost is new, so could be like using a new muscle”, Sam pauses and squints at Danny, having processed what he had started saying, “what do you mean by you haven’t restarted things?”. 

Danny rubs his neck, there’s no way they were going to be happy about this, “I mean you’ve probably got a point on the ghost thing being new. But, um, when you guys went to sleep that night obviously I didn’t”. 

Tucker nods, “you said as much”. 

Danny nods in return and looks around a bit, “considering the whole dead or dying thing, I decided to actually, y’know, check? My folks do have an ECG you know”. 

Sam and Tucker exchange a glance before looking back to Danny, both a bit worried now. Sam asking, “are you trying to say you don’t have a heartbeat? Because Danny, you shouldn’t be able to walk around at all if that’s the case”. 

Danny shrugs, “pretty much yeah. My theory is my ghost or whatever is just puppeting my corpse around”. 

Sam can’t help but laugh a little, “that is a very morbid way to put it Danny”, before sighing, “are you sure?”. 

Danny shrugs and looks at them, “I dunno. I haven’t, like, rechecked. It explains the body temp though”. 

Tucker nods, made sense, a corpse would be as cold as one. “So totally dead not just kinda dead”. 

Danny hops off the counter, sighing a bit happily when he doesn’t start going through the floor, before nodding at Tucker, “I think so. Suit’s just holding me in or together or whatever”.

Tucker punches him in the shoulder, “well it’s whatever. Not happy dude, but you’re still here, so it’s whatever”. Sam bumps shoulders with him as they turn to head out of the bathroom, “bet anything that’s why you feel all tired then, moving around their corpse is probably not something ghosts normally do. You’ll adjust”. 

Danny grumbles as they head to their last class before lunch, “well it should hurry up with the adjusting”. 

While Tucker laughs a bit and speaks quietly, “and here’s hoping ectoplasm is as good a preserver as your parents think, so you don’t start rotting or something”.

Danny makes a disgusted and deeply offended face at Tucker as they sit down in their chairs, “I did _not_ need to have that possibility put into my head Tuck. Fuck you”. 

Tucker waves him off, “oh don’t worry, we’ll let you know if your shit stinks”. 

“Fuck. You. Tuck. Fuck you so much”. 

Sam and Tucker walk slowly so Danny can keep up with them, neither’s really sure if Danny actually _knows_ how slowly he’s reacting and doing things. Though both of them are also pretty sure that the reason is he, the ghost Danny, is just figuring out how to make Its stupid meat sack work properly. Adjusting. And it might just be one of those ‘gets worse before it gets better’ things. 

Danny sighing as they sit down at their lunch table, the one furthest away from everyone, very thankful for that fact in case he does something weird. Tucker poking him, “you know, you kept flickering invisible in class”. Danny groans, “I didn’t even notice. Did anyone else?”. 

Both Sam and Tucker shake their heads, Sam replying before eating away at her lettuce and carrot wrap, “nope, you’re good”. Danny grunts and rest his forehead on the table, thank Hell for people being unobservant.

Tucker pushes Danny’s shoulder when he sees Dash. It would probably be best if Danny acted as normal, well normal for Danny, as possible. Pushing down his worry over it taking a while for Danny to respond and sit up, “wha?”. 

“Dash”.

“.........Ah shit”. 

“Yeah”. 

Dash sneers as he looks at the little trio of losers, eyes stopping on the crappy looking Danny, “what your body finally realised how shitty your existence is?”, scoffing at Fenton just glaring after a bit. Well that was no fun, and promptly dumping his tray of scraps on the geek friend's head. 

Tucker and Sam are actually glad for Danny’s delayed reaction time as he starts growling well after Dash has walked away. Though both get a little startled when Tucker has to stop cleaning himself off to grab Danny’s arm, stopping him from getting up and seemingly chasing after the bully. “It’s not worth it dude. He’s not worth shit. And your crap is not exactly cooperating with you right now”. 

Danny grumbles and huffs, “prick still shouldn’t get off with attacking my friends like that”. 

Tucker quirks an eyebrow, “it’s nothing new. Barely even qualifies as harmful even. It’s damn annoying yeah, but whatever”. 

Sam, having a bit of Deja Vu from yesterday’s ghost octopus incident, “you know, that’s the second time you’ve been a bit weirdly protective of us?”. 

Danny squints at her before shrugging, “seems normal to me”. 

Tucker snorts while he pulls the last bits of food out of his sweater, “‘seems normal’ says the guy from possibly the least normal family in the world who’s trying and failing to pilot his own corpse”. 

“Hey now, I’m trying you ass”. 

Sam shakes her head, “no you idiots”, poking Danny, “think maybe you, as a ghost cause let’s be honest, if you’re dead and ‘piloting your corpse’ you are the ghost, might have a protective issue? Is that a ghost thing?”. 

Danny squints, trying to remember if his folks had ever mentioned anything like that. Which no, they definitely did not. It was always evil this or violent that. Grunting at her, “no. They’d probably laugh at the idea of a ghost being ‘protective’ or ‘good’ or anything positive actually”, air-quoting, “those emotionless ectoplasmic scum are nothing but Obsession and malicious intent”. 

Tucker claps Danny on the shoulder, having to do it a second time as he phased through him the first time, “ghost fuckers would be protective of their Obsession shit though, right? Maybe _we’re your Obsession”._

Danny screws up his face, that statement felt wrong on a deep level, “why the Hell do you sound _happy_ about that idea?”. 

Tucker waves him off, “I’m a slut for attention”, sighing wistfully, “hundreds of girls obsessing over me, now that would be a dream come true”. 

Sam whacks Tucker over the head, “you’re a pig”. Danny grumbling with a laugh after a bit, “and I think you’re still the weird one”. 

Sam bumps shoulders with Danny as they get up at the sound of the lunch bell, “your folks are clearly wrong on stuff. Because emotionless my ass”.

Danny shrugs and looks at his feet, “could change th-”.

Sam points at Danny aggressively and cuts him off, “don’t you dare with that shit”. Tucker throws an arm around Danny, “you’re the goodest dude. If anything you’re probably actually Obsessed, if that even is a thing, with something that’ll make you gooder”. 

Danny turns and squints at Tucker before they have to go their separate was for classes, “Tuck...I’m pretty sure you just used a couple imaginary words. And for the record, I don’t feel ‘obsessed’, or whatever, over anything...currently anyway”. Tucker just gives him a thumbs-up as he walks off. 

Sitting down Danny, can’t really get his mind off the whole Obsession thing. Obsessions were one of his folks' bigger theories. Meaning they had poured tons of research into it. Meaning it was more than likely accurate. Which really just makes Danny hope Tucker’s right that it’ll have a positive effect on him. Though that just gets him thinking on all the theories his folks had, very few being even redeemable as possibly not bad. Seriously making him hope they are wrong about _a lot_. But that would also make them feel bad, which he doesn’t want either. Talk about a catch twenty-two. 

By the end of his second to last class, Danny’s not exactly liking how hard it’s gotten to move. It was like his limbs were full of lead and he was just _so tired_. But he does his damnedest to speed walk out of Mr. Lancer’s class, seeing the worried glances the teacher had been throwing at him all class. 

Having to pause and just look around for a bit after getting out just to orient himself, everything and one is just moving too fast. 

Jerking a bit and turning his head to the side over someone tapping his shoulder, firmly glad it’s just Tucker. Promptly greeting him, “heyyyyy”. 

Tucker cringes at the heavy slurring and just how utterly like crap Danny looked, patting Danny on the shoulder, “dude”, nodding his head towards Sam as she approaches. Waiting for Danny to look back at her before Tucker starts talking to Danny again, “Lancer actually called our last teacher to get us to take you home. Saying that, and these are his words not mine, ‘Daniel looked like he was on the verge of dying’. So no Art class for any of us”. 

Sam and Tucker walk with Danny between them, pushing him forward with their shoulders and pretty sure he’s not entirely aware they’re actually moving. It takes a full five minutes for him to respond, “tha ba?”.

Sam and Tucker look at him, pretty sure he’d face-plant if he tried walking on his own at this point. His movements were stilted, eyes didn’t really seem focused on anything and his complexion was basically translucent. Tucker gives him a smile anyway, “pretty sure you are failing miserably at working your body”, frowning a little, “honestly, maybe shoving you back in wasn’t such a good idea. Maybe ghosts literally can’t do what you’re trying to”. Whatever Danny had said in response was basically unintelligible gibberish, if they were even supposed to be words. 

Sam looks around once they get out the front doors, guiding the two boys into the little indented area of the school where the smokers usually hid. The two lay Danny to sit on the ground before pulling off his sweater and moving to unzip the jumpsuit. Both hoping that disconnecting/separating Danny a bit would help. 

Danny’s reaction time is far too delayed to cover up his left half once he clues in what’s going on, but him trying to, makes it very clear to them he knew; while both of them suck in their breaths. Tucker looks away from the clearly burnt mess, it was damn obvious _that_ was what caused Danny to scream like he did. Shaking his head to clear away the image while Danny says, “srrrrry”. 

Sam snapping without any real bite, “grossing Tucker out is _not_ what you should be saying sorry for Danny”, being the one with the strongest stomach Sam elects to look over Danny’s bodies limp shoulder and left arm/hand. Beef jerky fire log was not a description she wanted to be applicable to any part of her friends bodies. Speaking barely above a whisper, “does it hurt?”. Danny shakes his head slowly after a while. Sam’s honestly thankful for that. Plus, if it was hurting him then logically he shouldn’t have been able to move it around at all, like he had been all day. 

Both of them looking over the bits of Danny’s ghost that were out, with him leaning his white-haired head, black jumpsuit covered glowing chest and right arm on Tucker. Both of them picking up how faint the glow was, having to actually squint to easily see it. Whereas before it had been almost harsh in its brightness. His ghost body was also extremely translucent and bits seemed to be dissipating off into the air. His green eyes were completely washed out, nearly looking pale grey. Sam pushes Danny up a bit off of Tucker and fiddles with the black jumpsuit, both pleased and surprised to find a zipper. 

Tucker throwing in some humour while Sam unzips ghost Danny, “you smell like lime, like a sickly strong soda pop”. Getting more gibberish in response. 

Sam’s not going to try and figure out why his ghost jumpsuit is just over bare skin instead of a colour inverted t-shirt. While Danny’s bodies skin looked translucent, his ghost body was completely so. Touching at his chest over the ball of light she can see is inside, only for Danny to shrink back from the touch and make weak growls. Though that gets them to notice that ghost Danny was moving just as, if not more, jerky than when he was piloting his body. Opting to zip him back up because there’s really nothing she can think to do, and the three just settle into resting in their secluded spot; ghost Danny slumped over Tucker again with his corpses body resting across their laps. 

After about ten minutes of Tucker winding his fingers through Danny’s white hair and Sam patting his jean covered legs, Danny shivers and mumbles though clearly trying to make what he says clear, “erse. Eel erse”. 

Both friends pause and look towards him, Tucker asking, “worse? Are you trying to say ‘worse’?”. Danny makes what sounds like hissing in response but the slight nodding makes it clear he was trying to say ‘yes’. 

Tucker and Sam exchange a worried glance before Tucker nods his head for Sam to work on getting Danny back fully in himself and the jumpsuit. Both frown when Sam grabs Danny’s limp ghostly left arm and it squishes a bit, green sticky goo sticking to her fingers when she tries to lift her hand off a little. Sam pushes on anyway and holds his arms together one at a time to get them back into the jumpsuit, Tucker lowering Danny’s upper half back down so Sam can zip the jumpsuit up and hoping that he should be glad at Danny’s fully snapping back into his body. Watching him blink and loll his head around a bit, before they grab his arms and heave him up. They’re both worried and glad when Danny grips their clothing slightly after throwing his arms over their shoulders. But they’re definitely happy Danny can walk on his own a bit, even if it’s slow and uncoordinated. 

Sam asking after a bit, “how you doing Danny?”. 

“Mmmm ine”.

Sam grumbles to herself about how Danny is just incapable of admitting when he is decidedly _not_ fine. But both friends stop walking, picking up that they’re dragging Danny at this point. 

The last thing Danny hears before blacking out is Tucker snapping, “I swear if you fucking keel over on us again I will _never_ forgive you”. Catching this first bit of Sam’s comment, “don’t you _dare_ Fent-”.

Tucker and Sam lower Danny down to the ground, Tucker running a hand down his face, “Danny dude _fuck_ “, before shaking his head and snapping at Sam, “grab his legs. We’re carrying this asshole”. 

They make a damn point of speed walking the rest of the way, both a little pissed Danny tried to play this off and pissed because they don’t even have a clue what to do with this. It’s not like they could go to the hospital and even if they did have medical training -which they don’t- it would be pretty damn useless. And the only people who might even have the slightest clue how to treat a ghost made it a living to harm them. Seriously hoping the two hunters would realise this was their kid and be parents first. 

Jack furrows his brow and Maddie gapes before rushing over as Sam kicks in the door and helps Tucker carry Danny inside. He looked dead. Motionless and so pale they could see his veins through his skin. Maddie snapping, “what happened?!? We could have picked him up!”, while helping the two teens to set Danny down on the couch. 

Jack blurting out, “was it a ghost?”, then soundings a bit small, which is a bit of a miracle for the large man, “is this because of the portal?”. 

Sam and Tucker exchange a glance, both biting their lips. They knew Danny probably didn’t want his folks knowing what happened. But secrets weren’t worth his life? Existence? 

Maddie glares at the teens who clearly don’t really want to talk as she sticks the thermometer in Danny’s mouth. She should have kept him home, they should have brought him home sooner, the school should have _called_. 

Tucker nods at Sam to do the talking, being the more well-spoken one who was used to arguing with parental figures, while he gets Danny’s shoes, pants and sweater off. Pretty sure that Danny’d at least be more comfortable this way. 

Maddie had pulled the thermometer out of Danny’s mouth just before Tucker had moved on to pulling off Danny’s sweater, she’d be a bit curious over how practiced and easy that seemed to come to the teen if it weren’t for her boys current state. How skinny Danny was just made him look more fragile whenever he was unwell, she kind of hated that. 

Gaping at the temperature reading, this was beyond hypothermic! While Sam starts talking at her and grabs the thermometer out of her hand, “that’s not important. We already know. I made him take his temperature hours ago”, Maddie gapes more as the goth looks at the thermometer and nods, “same as before. That’s good?”, shaking her head, “not important. See Danny kind of li-”.

Maddie cuts her off, “what do you mean the same! That, this kind of temperature is beyond deadly!”. Sam just glares at her before snapping, “ignore that. We can’t explain everything because Danny clearly needs help. So shut up and listen”. Maddie only shuts up out of a bit of respect for the girl being protective and how Danny needing help was far more important than anything strange. 

Jack nodding at Sam, “what didn’t Danny-boy tell us? How do we help?”. 

Sam nods curtly at the man before batting away Maddie’s hand from Danny’s jumpsuit zipper, “don’t. That makes him worse. We tried that already”, glancing at the lab door, “Danny said you already knew about him activating the portal?”. At both their nods she asks, “did he tell you how?”. 

Jack mutters, “he said he just poked it”, Maddie nodding, “we think he must have accidentally fixed a loose screw or panel”. 

Tucker snorts and mutters at Danny, “that weak shit is what you went with? Really?”. 

Sam rolls her eyes, “poked something is probably accurate Tucker. Just with the where omitted”, looking to Jack then Maddie, “Danny was _inside_ when it turned on”. 

Both parents yelling, “ _WHAT!!!_ ”.

Sam glares, “doesn’t matter, its past. Only even mentioning it right now because it’s important to explain why we brought him here not the hospital or anything”. 

Tucker nods, patting Danny’s shoulder, “we don’t know what to do and the hospital would be even more useless. But you know ghosts”. 

Maddie shakes her head, not wanting to even consider letting her mind go down the path it’s trying to, “what do ghosts have to do with-”.

Sam cuts her off, “everything. But you have to just believe us because proving it requires taking off the jumpsuit and that would be _bad_. We saw it, saw him. He didn’t survive the portal turning on Maddie”. 

Maddie shakes her head and looks at Danny, trying to ignore the lack of a rise and fall to his chest, “but, no, that’s not, he doesn’t look-”.

Sam cuts her off again, “don’t care. We got him back into his body. He’s possessing himself right now. When we got him to fess up, he said he was tired but like he’d over exerted himself, not like he needed to sleep. His reaction time’s slow, jerky movements, startled slurring a lot”. 

Tucker’s nods, “we thought he just needed time to adjust, when he got worse we got him out of the jumpsuit a bit, that seems to be the only thing really holding him in”. 

Sam picks up and talks a bit faster as Tucker pats Danny when he shivers. Both having decided the ‘shiver’ was not a good sign, “his ghost was translucent, eyes dull, glow barely visible and he got gooey when we touched him”, snapping her fingers and quickly adding, “under the ghost jumpsuit he had this glowing ball in his chest, touching the area seemed to hurt him”. 

Jack gapes a little, she was talking about a Core, which they had definitely _not_ told anyone about yet since it was only a beginning theory and impossible to prove. Which only meant they were absolutely telling the truth. Maddie snaps him out of his thoughts, “Jack get the portal open”.

Sam raises a distrustful eyebrow but the two teens help Maddie move Danny down to the lab. Tucker grumbling, “ghost hunters or not, if you hurt him-”.

Both are glad when Maddie cuts Tucker off, “never! I couldn’t, we couldn’t, he’s our baby-boy”, Maddie shakes her head and forces herself not to tear up, knowing damn well this, them being ghost hunters, was likely at least part of why they hadn’t been told about this. About Danny... _dying_. Being a.... _ghost_. She’s got no clue how he’s still using his body at all but that doesn’t matter right now. Explaining at the two teens, “ghosts need to be in the Ghost Zone. They can only stay here for a short time. If he’s been like this since the portal started working then he should have dissolved into a puddle of ectoplasm before the sun even came up today”. Sam and Tucker pale at that, now both certain that taking him out of his jumpsuit at all was very _very bad_. Seriously hoping their ignorance didn’t just cost Danny his (after)life. 

Jack speaking as he finishes hitting buttons to get the portal opened and rushing to grab a hover Observation Deck they had finished perfecting weeks ago, “his body must be stabilising him somehow. Did you kids use anything to get him in it?”. 

Sam nods, helping Maddie rest Danny on the invention, while Tucker runs off and digs into a pile of stuff. Tucker rushes back over and pushes the gloves at Jack before heading back to Danny, speaking as he goes, “we kept going through him and him through his body so we grabbed two pairs of those thinking it would stop that from happening. Just sort of pushed him back into himself”. 

Maddie tears up a little but shakes her head, poor kids, “you kids must have been terrified”. The two mutter, “understatement”, while Jack and Maddie hop onto the Observation Deck. Jack manning the controls for what’s functionally a convertible Spector Speeder. Maddie shaking her head at the teens as they go to crawl on board, “you two aren’t protected. _We_ haven’t even been in there”. 

Sam snaps, “then get us protection, _we’re not leaving him_ ”. Maddie only wastes a couple seconds staring at the defiant goth before jumping off to the jumpsuit closet and grabbing two of hers that were a bit small, throwing them at the two teens. Raising an eyebrow at the two as they get the jumpsuits on easily while Jack says, “hold on”, and guns it into the unknown of the Ghost Zone. 

Sam smirking at Maddie without any real humour, “we’ve both tried Danny’s on”. Jack can’t help but beam over that, his boy -though he didn’t say it- clearly was happy they made it for him. Liked it. Though he can’t help but shake his head and grimace over knowing that Danny-boy was basically stuck with it permanently now. At least they were comfortable. 

Normally Jack and Maddie would have looked around at the strange green surroundings, but they couldn’t care less at the moment. Maddie yanking the two teens hoods over and goggles down before moving to get Danny’s off. Explaining why as she goes, “ghosts need to absorb the free-floating ectoplasm from the environment here to stay stable and healthy. Their own shed off ectoplasm converted by the atmosphere into latent ectoplasm would be better but new ghosts haven’t been around long enough to build up some in their environment. Lairs heal ghosts faster but we don’t have time to go looking for that”, shaking her head, she couldn’t bring herself to call him one of those creatures yet, not out loud, “I’m only unzipping it a bit just in case though”. 

Tucker nods, “only a bit is enough for that part of him to detach, separate, expose, or whatever”. Looking over at Danny’s chest to see that black jumpsuit seemingly phase out of Danny’s body’s chest to float just over his shirt, the pale blue glow of the circle thingy in his chest showing through the translucent black easily. 

Maddie sucking in a breath and Jack doing a bit of a double-take at Danny’s white-haired head -that absolutely should have more of a glow, it was barely there at all- just sort of floating out of his black-haired one. Maddie promptly moving to lean Danny’s ghostly head and chest out of the jumpsuit they had made for him and cradle his head in her lap, tearing up over how he was dissipating so much and how she could feel the gooey liquid of ectoplasm on her gloves. Jack muttering, “he’s colour inverted”. Everyone else just nodding. 

Sam and Tucker sit on their knees rubbing at Danny’s legs while Maddie frowns at Danny’s form occasionally turning green and bubbling in spots. Looking at Jack, “steer us deeper in, be careful”, looking to Danny’s two friends that seem to be scrutinising her every feature, “our portal is set up to siphon off free-floating ectoplasm, so the levels arguably should be slightly lower near the portal”, she’s glad Danny’s got such good protective friends. But if they had all just _told them_ then this situation could have been avoided. But how could she blame them? They were already in trouble for being in the lab and neither she nor Jack were subtle about their opinions on ghosts. Danny probably thought they’d think that _about him_. And if she’s honest with herself, if she didn’t know, hadn’t seen, that this was Danny, then she would think and treat him the same as any other ghosts. Zone she’s glad that never had a chance to happen. Never had a chance to wind up... _hunting_...him. But she’d take doing _that_ and living with the regret, over him being destroyed, losing him entirely. Muttering at him but not daring to move him or touch him more, “oh sweetie”. 

Jack glances at the two teens, swallowing a bit, he was never one for silence, especially drawn-out ones, blurting out, “the thing in his chest a Core. They were just a theory”. 

Sam glares at him, “well don’t you _dare_ try studying his”. Jack instantly shakes his head, “I wouldn’t! Unless he wanted that, was okay with it”.

Tucker rolls his eyes, “Danny would be ‘okay with’ nearly anything if he thinks it’ll help. Even if it hurts him. He’s an idiot like that”, shaking his head, “he hid _this_ because he didn’t want to upset us”. 

Sam nods with a sigh, “even tried to claim he was fine when he pretty much wasn’t coherent anymore”, glaring at Jack, “so him saying it’s okay doesn’t mean _shit_ ”. 

Jack blinks, remembering that time Danny had ducked around him to catch a hot stove element even though Jack was the one with the temperature resistant jumpsuit gloves, just so he wouldn’t be upset about the element getting dented or his suit scorched. Nodding, “yeah, so selfless”. 

Maddie smiles at Danny, “he’s always been a good kid”. 

Sam, feeling the need to say this, “and he still is”, not a chance in Hell was she letting the two hunters label him as evil or emotionless or whatever other crap they happened to believe. 

Jack grumbles, “I hope you’re right”, while Maddie glances at the goth and worries her lip some. All their research showed ghosts as inherently evil, cruel, and empty. They weren’t capable of being ‘good’. But at the same time, Sam and Tucker were describing him as being the same overly caring kid he’s always been. So Maddie hopes for his sake that their work’s wrong, or at the very least that holding on to his...body...keeps him more...human. Looking to the two teens and trying to word her question gently, “outside of the...destabilising symptoms, has he been different? At all?”. 

Sam glares at her, “he’s been Danny”, snapping a bit meanly, “he’s not ‘going bad’ if that’s what you’re attempting to ask”. 

Maddie sighs but Tucker does give her an actual answer, “he’s been more protective. That's it”, Sam glares at him for that but Maddie nods with a small smile, “thank you Tucker”. Looking up at the strange green sky, “it’s too early to say I guess, but I hope you kids are right”, looking back down to Danny and smiling a bit over his face twitching a little, “we _all_ just have to keep an eye on him for now”.

Sam glares and Jack’s honestly impressed with _just how_ much disapproval that girl can get out of her eyes. Sam snapping, “your theories are just that, _theories_. I’m not going to treat Danny like a dog that might snap just because of some bigoted opinions”. 

Maddie sighs and glares a little, “theories have a bases. They’re never unfounded”. 

“ _Bullshit_. You couldn’t even study _actual ghosts before now_. Biology theories maybe, _maybe_ , have more worth. But that’s it”. 

Tucker groans, “it’s the meat argument all over again”. Sam points at him, “yes, and I’m right. They have feelings, _Danny_ has feelings. When you base further opinions and theories on other ones that are comprised of bullshit, you just get more bullshit”. 

Danny’s groan functionally halts the conversation, everyone holding their breaths as Danny slurs, “ish hat rally whatsss I wah up to?”. 

Tucker chuckles a bit forcefully and pats Danny’s leg, “you know us, you’re the only thing that keeps us from killing each other”. 

Danny snorts, “gesh I coulda use mmmm own Dannyyyy”. Sam and Tucker both facepalm. Sam muttering, “it’s too soon for the morbid jokes Danny”. 

That comment is enough to jar Danny into opening his eyes, something being too morbid for the goth was almost concerning. Only to blink up at his mom who was clearly recovering from a serious cringe. “Uhhh hi?”. 

Tucker laughs a bit more genuinely while Sam mutters, “oh my god Danny”. While Danny looks down at himself, going a bit wide-eyed at clearly being partly outside of himself and gaping a little at flicking his eyes to look around a bit, “whirl in tha?”. 

Jack sits down closer to Danny’s heads and smiles down at him, “care to try that again Danny-boy?”.

While Tucker speaks up, “Ghost Zone dude. ‘Parently ghosts can’t stay in the human world for too long at a time. Y’know, like you did”. 

Danny chuckles and nods, looking at his mom, “sew ya no I gerse”. She nods at him, “yeah sweetie. Don’t be mad at your friends though. They had to, you were really bad”. Danny nods, he kind of figured that was going to happen when he started feeling less like hot garage and more like a deadman getting beaten over every inch of his body with a scythe. They probably felt bad about telling them what was his secret to tell. Looking at them slowly, he’s just going to assume the blue jumpsuits were cause of being in the Zone, “sery y’all”.

Sam smacks his leg, “no sorry’s from you. You absolute idiot. The only damn thing you should feel even slightly bad about is _not telling us just how bad you were_ ”. 

“Idn’t wanna worry ya”. 

“For fucks shake Danny”. 

Maddie’s not going to even bother calling the goth out on her language. Personally, she’s glad to see the selflessness from Danny right now. It meant he really was still him and good. Patting at Danny’s white hair, which he clearly didn’t expect, “well it’ll be okay now. You just need to stay here a bit longer. Focus on resting and recovering for now”. 

Danny watches her hand for a bit, surprised and pleased seeing as she’s touching his ghost hair. “Sew I donno haveta stay?”. Jack muttering at him, “Danny-boy, we are not kicking you out”. Danny huffs a little, not what he meant though yes, that was on his mind too.

Maddie chuckles a little, “no sweetie. Technically you should stay a while but I’m sure your dad can whip up something that you can just take to sustain yourself on Earth”, glancing at Jack to make the hint _very_ clear. Firmly pleased when he does skitter off to go through what they’ve got on board and thinking up ideas. 

Danny doesn’t want to be a bother but he also knows that his folks love making stuff, especially for him and Jazz. While his mom continues, “plus, we don’t know much about this place. No way we’re leaving you here where it could be dangerous”. Danny rolls his eyes and huffs at that, feeling a little insulted. But he could understand the worry at least. 

After about an honestly impressive ten minutes of silence, Danny honestly would like to sit up at this point, but he doesn’t want to freak anyone out. Considering the only sorta in his body thing. Scratching at his chest out of boredom and not really sure why everyone except his dad looks worried now, “what?”. 

Maddie asking, “your chest is not bothering you, is it?”. 

Danny’s just more confused now, “no? Should it?”. 

“No, it’s just that’s where your Core is-”. 

Danny cuts her off, “my what now?”. 

Everyone chuckles at Danny’s confusion some while Jack leans back and pats at Danny’s ghostly chest gently, “like a heart Danny-boy, but for ghosts!”. 

Maddie explains a bit more, “it’s a ball of hyper condensed and concentrated ectoplasm that ghosts have, they siphon free-floating ectoplasm out of the environment and use that to feed the ghost by converting it into that ghosts ectoplasm. They also process and clean the ghosts own ectoplasm”, patting Danny’s head, “or that’s what we’ve been able to find out and theorise so far”. 

Danny nods, made sense ghosts would have something like that. Gesturing at the visible ghost portion of himself, “is that why my chest’s all detached?”. 

Jack butts in at that, “partly yup! We’ve honestly never even heard of a ghost doing what you have, so we took a guess in that you’d be able to absorb better more exposed!”, nodding at Sam and Tucker, “you’re friends explained how that worked”, before looking back to Danny, “I'm glad your suit has been so helpful!”. 

Danny chuckles, “guess you could say it grew on me”, patting at the black of his ghostly jumpsuit before looking back to his mom, “um, would it be fine to be all together again though? Kinda weird being only sorta out”. 

Maddie’s not really sure what to say about that. What he’s doing, staying in his body, was definitely abnormal and might not even be all that good for him. At the least it would be easier on his actual form to not have to be dealing with the body. “Honestly? It would probably be better for you to just get out entirely. But I’m guessing you don’t really want to do that”. 

Danny instantly shakes his head, he could possibly maybe be okay with that, if he knew for damn sure he could get back in and that his corpse wouldn’t rot or whatever on him, “at least if I have it, can be in it, I can still at least somewhat live my life”. 

Tucker snorts, “pretty sure that’s an oxymoron for a ghost dude”. 

Sam and Tucker laugh, Danny responding with a bit of a smirk, “shut it Tuck”, before looking back to his mom and raising an eyebrow. 

Maddie nods, this was going to take some getting used to, but at least his friends seemed okay with it, “it should be fine. But can you tell that you’re absorbing ectoplasm? How it feels? Because you need to make sure you keep doing that. All our jumpsuits are designed to stop our bodies from being able to absorb ectoplasm”, she gives the black jumpsuit gloves on his bodies hands a pointed look. 

Danny tilts his head, trying to figure out if anything felt different besides not feeling like hot garbage that had been run over by speeding semis and hoards of furious bees. Because obviously he hadn’t been absorbing ectoplasm before, he wouldn’t even be in this mess otherwise. Focusing on his chest more, since that’s where said absorption is likely taking place, or at least taking place most heavily. And yeah, there was almost like this pulsing and humming. It wasn’t the same as the faint vibrating of his ghost form that he’d gotten rather used to by now. Plus, the pulsing seemed to travel across his surface and into his chest, logically that had to be the absorbing from the air thing? What worries him a little is not feeling that at all from the parts of him that were inside his human body. But well, all that was covered by jumpsuit, so maybe just his face being exposed would be enough? Worth a shot. Nodding at his mom, “yeah, kinda like a humming and pulsing”. 

Jack makes a damn point to not pester his son about said feeling, partly to avoid the goths wrath. Definitely scarier than that ectopus that came flying through the house looking all beat up yesterday. He’s a bit sad they couldn’t catch It to take It apart or get a closer look. But considering Danny, it’s for the best. Wouldn’t want Danny-boy worried they’d do that to him! They were definitely going to have to change how they treated and dealt with ghost. Tapping his chin and thinking some. They already had an available steady source for ectoplasm thanks to the portal. And logically, right, contact with raw non-purified ectoplasm should let him absorb ectoplasm from it. Technically he could just wash his face with it or something, but that was honestly a bit gross even to Jack. Plus, raw ectoplasm was corrosive, just because Danny himself could tolerate it fine didn’t mean his human body could handle the contact. So a more direct line would be better. But how? He didn’t have enough of the puzzle. 

Maddie nods, “alright then. Just make sure you don’t lose that feeling. You need it”, letting Danny zip his suit back up and watching him sort of melt back into his body fully, is more than a little strange. But watching him sit himself up is impossible not to smile over. Raising an eyebrow at him, “is it still happening? The feeling?”.

Danny nods, his guess had been right and so had his moms, “just in my face but yeah. So clearly I can’t absorb through the suit. That’s probably also at least partly why it’s able hold me in though”. 

Everyone but Jack -too lost in his own head- nods while Danny pokes at his face some. It felt a little different going through actual skin, more resistance and the humming was louder. Probably because his Core, or whatever, had to work a bit harder. Like making your heart beat faster... Was still weird not having that anymore. 

Tucker breaks into his thoughts, “dude! You got some of your colour back! No more see-through skin!”. Danny chuckles but decides not to ask, no wonder he was sent home if his skin was see-through looking. 

Looking to his mom, “so how long do I need to stay?”.

Sam snaps, “ _we_ , Danny. You stay, we stay”. Maddie nods immediately at Sam, no way was she leaving her baby-boy alone here. Ghost or not. It would be one thing if they could find his...lair...since he’d be safer, stronger, there. But that’s for another day. Heck, it might even be something that comes in time or he has to form himself. And for now, she’s just going to ignore the fact that he definitely will sneak back here on his own probably frequently. Because as much as she wants him back home, in the Fenton household, on Earth. This place was his home now, where he was supposed to be. She just hopes he doesn’t change, that exposure to this place and ectoplasm doesn’t change him. Looking to Danny, “hard to say, sweetie. You should be able to tell when you’re replenished”. 

Danny grumbles, “great, another ‘just got to feel it’ thing”. 

Maddie giggles slightly and brushes his hair some, “sorry sweetie. There’s going to be somethings you're just going to have to figure out yourself”. 

Jack shakes his head and looks to Danny and Maddie, “do either of you have any idea how exactly your ghost is set up in there? We need to bypass your human body somehow and get straight to the ghost one to use raw ectoplasm”.

Maddie nods to herself, yeah raw ectoplasm was likely the only option. As not only would contaminating a portion of their house so severely and sustainably to make enough free-floating ectoplasm be insanely dangerous, it was also just not possible. Though she’s honestly got as bout as much of an idea how Danny’s making this work at all as Jack does. Making grabbing hands at Jack, “do you still have those gloves? That they used?”, Jack nods and hands them over. 

Danny blurts out, “well, I feel like I’m wearing a skin-tight bodysuit if that helps anything”. 

Tucker snorts, “that is _literally_ what you are doing”. 

Maddie tilts her head, pretty sure Danny shouldn’t feel that. Could be just because it was his own body. But assumptions make fools of us all. A term she probably should heed more often apparently. Pointing at Jack, but apparently he read her mind, as he hands her a little cam pill before she even has to ask. 

Danny chuckles a little, should have seen that coming, wouldn’t be the first time making a Fenton swallow a camera pill happened. Holding out his hand, “alright alright”. He’ll admit to swallowing these for fun before. There was that notable time he swallowed multiple handfuls for the chaos of it, scared the crap out of his folks that day. Chuckling a little as he throws the little camera back and swallows. 

Maddie looks over the glove invention quickly, just their standard power nullifier style of weapon. Made to block a ghost from using their powers. Explained nothing. Redirecting her attention to the camera screen and looking for anything out of the ordinary for a human body. Well, other than things not working. His insides were way too still. Which really only serves to remind her how his body was very much _dead_. That was...going to take a while to be okay with. Blinking at the screen as the colour program properly kicks in, clearly this was one of the older cam pills. But what really catches her attention is how everything is shades of green, not reds or pinks or whites or yellows. Just green. Lots of green. Taking a few screenshots and blowing them up for a closer look. It wasn’t that everything was green, it was just seemingly coated in ectoplasm. Likely Danny’s. It was like his ghost ‘body’ was very literally sloshing and sliding in and around his human one. Kept under the skin by the jumpsuits ecto-phobic properties? But then how is he staying inside his face? Maybe it’s just not sloshing around in his face and brain at all. Maybe it was only doing that under the jumpsuit because, somehow, the jumpsuit affected his ghost or body when the accident happened. But there was a bonus to this, the ectoplasm coating everything would functionally protect and completely preserve it. Turning to look at Danny, “you think you could separate your torso again? So I could see if this changes?”. 

Danny nods and unzips his jumpsuit, hiding his left side still and catching his bodies head from falling back with his right hand; leaning it on and holding it over his ghost forms right shoulder. 

Tucker bends over laughing, “dude that looks insanely strange!”. Danny just rolls his eyes and laughs a little, while watching the screen for changes with his mom. He can’t help smirking a little at the distortion him separating caused on screen, but otherwise the only change is that the green didn’t seem to be ‘flowing’ anymore. Still there all the same, just not moving. 

Maddie nods, it was nothing short of luck that he was in his suit at the time, “okay, so the jumpsuits are functionally bouncing back the shedded off ectoplasm, resulting in it concentrating and becoming a more unique blend of sentient ghost ectoplasm. And the jumpsuit being imprinted keeps the original jumpsuit from eroding this specific ectoplasm. All in all, functionally super changing everything with ectoplasm. But of course, without the Ghost Zone’s environment to convert that ectoplasm into the latent or free-floating kind, it’s not a viable ecto-source for him”.

Maddie taps her chin while Danny blurts out, “excuse? You’ve lost me”. 

Maddie looks at him and blushes a bit sheepishly, having rather forgotten he was there a little, “well sweetie, your suit-”, plucking the white on his left arm, “-is effectively stopping your ectoplasm from shedding off into the environment around you. Trapping it inside until you build up so much it concentrates into a liquid”, gesturing at the screen, “a kind of raw ectoplasm but still coded to you. So you can’t feed off it, unfortunately. And your other jumpsuit-”, plucking the black glowing jumpsuit over his detached ghost chest, “-matches the one you’re wearing so your ecto-wavelengths lineup. Protecting you from your own suit. If you wore mine or your dads or any other anti-ecto jumpsuit it would slowly erode you, because of the material inside made to protect against long term overshadowing”, pointing back to the screen and pointing to areas where the ectoplasm was still, “I’d say if you stayed out for long enough, the ectoplasm would eventually dissipate. I think that so long as there’s some of your raw ectoplasm coating everything, getting back in shouldn’t be a problem at all and your body, at least on the inside, should be basically ectoplasm tolerant”. Pointing at Danny then, “you still shouldn’t let the skin on your face contact raw ectoplasm though, even your own”. 

Tucker snorts, “so Danny's basically allergic to himself”. 

Danny points at him, “no, I get along fine with my actual self”. Tucker’s rolls his eyes, “excuse me, I mean your meat suit’s allergic to you”. Sam glares at Tucker, “Danny’s corrupting you”.

Danny turns back to his mom, “so jumpsuit was a very good idea and how long would I have to be out, to have issues getting back in you think?”. 

Maddie looks at the screen and watches the still ectoplasm for a bit, “currently, I’d guess around three hours. But the longer you’re in, the more should logically build up”. 

Jack snaps his fingers and interjects, “wait! This works perfectly! If his insides are coated then he could just consume ectoplasm. His jumpsuit would keep it from being able to dissipate and all this other raw ectoplasm could simply store up any excess he takes in. That way he can’t destabilise a little from over-consumption! And! He’ll be able to pack around extra in case he needs a quick boost! Like having extra fat in winter!”, Jack rubs his belly slightly for emphasis. 

Sam and Tucker exchange a glance and start laughing, “so much for you being the one with the normal diet!”, both patting Danny and only laughing a bit more when they go through his crossed legs. Danny looks at his mom eyeballing his legs questioningly and rubs his neck some, he’d be blushing if he could, “I’m still figuring out how to control the, um, powers”, rubbing his neck a bit more, “that’s why I fell down the stairs yesterday”. Maddie can’t help but put a hand over her mouth and giggle some.

Jack patting Danny’s back, “I’m sure you’ll figure that out Danny-boy! We can’t really help with that!”, before everyone laughs a little bit more. Glad for the lighter topic that doesn’t revolve around how the heck Danny’s going to survive. 

Everyone quietens down when a little wisp-like ghost floats by, Jack flips up a little scanner before muttering, “huh. This guy’s just super concentrated sentient ectoplasm. Kinda more like a plant. No Core or self-specialised ectoplasm”. 

Maddie chuckles, smiling a little meanly at Danny, “so arguably, Danny could eat them for an even more satisfying meal”. 

Danny looks at his mom with mock horror, “are you suggesting I should just, _eat ghosts_ ”. 

Sam rolls her eyes, “how is that any different than your disgusting cow burgers”. 

“I am not and have never been _a cow_ , Sam. I _am_ a ghost. Who eats their own species?”. 

Tucker shrugs, “I wouldn’t say no”, everyone gives Tucker a look. Danny grumbling with a chuckle, “okay, Mr. Meat sense who lives exclusively off the flesh of others, is an outliner and should not be counted”. 

Maddie shakes her head, not sure if Danny’s being serious though firmly glad he’s feeling better. It was a bit outstanding how quickly ghosts, he, could recover. Looking back towards the little wisp ‘ghost’, “technically, all ghosts are is ectoplasm. So consuming any ectoplasm, which is what all Cores do, is arguably eating a ghost or a little bit of one”.

Danny looks down to his chest and firmly ignores his friends snickering. He’s not quite sure what to make about not actually being bothered by the idea of just _eating a ghost_. He’s going to keep that factoid to himself for now. Instead pointing at the screen, “you got enough data?”. At his parent's nods he zips his suit back up, fully snapping back into his body. 

Tucker pokes him, “you know dude, you could have just eaten that octopus”, Danny glares at Tucker while Maddie raises an eyebrow. 

Jack, having less tact, “oh! did you kiddos see the same beat-up one we did?”. Tucker instantly starts laughing. 

Sam looks at Maddie but points her thumb at Danny, “like _Tucker_ said, Danny’s been a bit protective. The octopus ghost creature attacked us”. Tucker snorts and slugs Danny in the arm, “and this guy beat the crap out of it”. 

Jack laughs, “those ghost hunter genes finally kicking in!”, first jumpsuits then beating up ghosts, they grow up so fast. While Sam watches Maddie’s reaction, not pleased with the slight frown and officially glad Tucker had the sense to not mention the growling. 

Maddie’s not sure how to feel about that. Sure he could be bold but he wasn’t a fighter. Or didn’t used to be. Though if ghostly possessiveness and aggression was going to come out in any way, it would make sense for it to be to protect his friends. Those three have always been extremely protective and possessive of each other. Today was proof of that, not a lot of people would travel into an unknown likely hostile alternate dimension for a friend. She and Jack already intended to and any good parent would do near anything for their kid, especially when they’re young. And she’s positive both Tucker and Sam would have attacked them if they so much as moved to hurt Danny. Honestly, she wouldn’t be surprised if the three would kill for each other. And arguably, beating up some ghost, especially an attacking animal one, was okay. But to do that with his human body? It was probably just as physically damageable as before to at least some degree. Actually...could it even heal? Frowning a bit more at Danny, “did you do that with this body? In it?”. 

Danny nods and raises an eyebrow, “uh, yeah? I’ve never left my body since the accident slingshot me out of it”. 

“Maybe don’t do that. I think you should avoid damaging it. Do you know if you can heal your body? Because so long as a ghosts Core’s fine or enough sentient ectoplasm is left, they can reform as good as new with time”. 

Sam and Tucker both glance at Danny’s left arm a bit pointedly. Danny shrugs and looks around a little, “I mean, I don’t really know?”. 

Sam, officially slightly worried, pulls a decorative pin off her leather punk band jacket and leans over to prick Danny just under the chin. This way there’s no risk of damaging his jumpsuit and if it doesn’t heal it won’t be noticeable. 

Maddie nods, before looking back in the direction of the portal in the distance. Looking back to Danny and asking, “are you still pulsing and humming?”. 

Danny nods, “yeah, I mean, I was probably _super_ _low_. Makes sense it’ll take a while”, tilting his head, “though, um, what is it that I’m doing that’s even draining my ectoplasm or whatever?”. 

Jack chuckles and pats Danny’s shoulder, “everything about a ghosts form uses up ectoplasm. Just maintaining your colours or shape would use it up! But obviously if you shot off ecto-blasts that would use up more! Can you do that?!?”, Jack is absolutely curious to figure out just what in all his boy can do, even if he’d rather him not be all ghostly. 

Danny shrugs a bit exaggeratedly, “no clue, maybe?”, rubbing his neck, “all I know now is the go through thingy and invisibility”. Grumbling to himself some then, “which I _still_ don’t really have control over”. 

Sam and Tucker exchange a look, mentally questioning each other if they’ve seen any other powers. Both shaking their heads before looking to Jack, Sam speaking, “we haven’t seen him do anything else”. 

Maddie tilts her head, so bare basic ghost powers, at least right now. He was...new, so it made sense that it might take a bit before he has access to everything he can do. Basic she could deal with, though, looking at Danny, “can you float? Because sweetie, _all_ ghosts can do that”. All three teens facepalm before nodding. 

Danny rubs his neck a little, “I mean, I haven’t while all up in myself, my body. But before I got back in, after the accident, I couldn’t _stop_ floating”. 

Maddie nods, “hmmm, the physical body’s probably grounding you some. You might have to really try to defy gravity while in it”. 

Danny nods while everyone jerks or blinks at him a bit. Danny looks at them and raises an eyebrow, “what?”. 

Tucker pokes him, “dude, you, ghost you, just pulsed or flickered or _something_ over top of your body”. 

Danny squints, “didn’t notice”, before trying to think if he felt anything different. 

Maddie ruffles his black hair a bit awkwardly, one thing she didn’t expect was for ghosts to use powers accidentally. She’d always thought they just _knew_ how to use their abilities. “We’re _all_ going to have to watch you for accidental power use huh?”. 

Again, Danny would be blushing if he could and they could tell he would be. After a bit Danny blinks, muttering, “not pulsing anymore actually”. Everyone smiles at that, pretty sure that meant he wasn’t absorbing any more ectoplasm and was thus healthy again. 

Maddie ruffles his hair more genuinely, “how are you feeling then? Back to a hundred percent?”.

Danny can practically feel Sam and Tucker staring holes through him, making it clear that they will be more than a little pissed if he lies. Good thing he doesn’t need to, “I’m good, I think anyway. I don’t really _know_ what completely healthy is supposed to feel like yet”.

Sam grumbles, “acceptable”, while Danny rubs at the pin pick under his chin a little. Danny commenting, “I can feel that my ectoplasm or whatever is more built-up or active or whatever were the little injury is though”.

Maddie tilts Danny’s head up to get a look, the little hole was basically gone but glowing slightly and a little ecto green. So clearly the ectoplasm could repair his body, but she can also see there’s a bit of an ecto-burn. “Well, you’re healed, but you’ve got a small ecto-burn. So _clearly_ you’ve got to avoid ectoplasmic contact on your face at least. Does it hurt at all?”. 

Danny was honestly kind of hoping that his left arm just had all its nerves fried, but now he’s kind of thinking he just can’t feel any pain his body should logically be in. Shaking his head, “no pain, just a little pressure. Probably from there being more ectoplasm there, or whatever”. 

Everyone frowns a little but nods. Sam and Tucker had pretty well figured as much. With the state of his one arm, that was probably for the best. Neither really wanting to imagine just how much that must hurt, if he could feel it. 

Maddie nodding at Jack and pointing towards the portal, “we can probably go back then”, before looking to Danny, actually they should make sure his ghost was okay as best they could. “Sweetie, think you could get out a bit so we can make sure you’re good though?”. 

Danny nods and moves to unzip his jumpsuit once more. Again catching his bodies head and resting it on his shoulder when his ghost chest and head separate from it. 

Everyone’s firmly glad he looks solid and his glow’s bright, Jack actually makes a show of squinting a little while he laughs a bit, “you’re certainly bright Danny-boy!”. 

Danny chuckles, the echo very noticeable now, “I’m guessing that’s good”. Pretty well everyone nods, that was fairly obvious. Though Tucker speaks up and points at his chest, “dude, what’s up with that? You gotta ‘D’ on your chest”. 

That gets everyone to look at Danny’s chest more closely, Danny quirking an eyebrow at the new symbol there. Maddie touching his chest, humming questioningly for a beat, “it must be part of your spirit itself rather than your body”, nodding to herself, “probably couldn’t form earlier because of you not being healthy. Right over your Core too”. 

Danny pokes at it and blinks a couple of times, everyone else looking at him a bit concerned and curious when his green eyes shine and spark a little. Only a bit more confused when Danny speaks sounding almost distant, “Phantom”. 

“Huh?”.

Sam rolls her eyes at Tucker, “eloquent”. Before looking back to Danny, who still looks kind of off in his own world, “‘phantom’ what Danny?”. 

Everyone waits in silence awkwardly and a bit concerned for a beat before Danny shakes his head and blinks a few times. Looking to Sam, “my name. That’s my name. Phantom”. 

Tucker curls up and wheezes, “well that’s original! That’s just another word for ghost!”. Danny just glares at him.

Sam pokes Danny, “it doesn’t bother you if we stick to Danny? Especially in public?”. But Maddie doesn’t give him a chance to respond when she traces the ‘P’ shape inside the ‘D’, “the symbol, it’s a DP. As in Danny Phantom”. Tucker just wheezes more, “you’re name’s on your chest! Like Superman! Oh I am going to mock you relentlessly!”. 

Jack butts in, “I think it looks cool! And we’re good to go back home whenever!”. Maddie shakes her head at Jack fondly but leans over to zip Danny’s suit back up, not sure what to make of him still looking a little distant. Speaking to Jack, “just go through dear”. 

Danny rubs at his chest a little, rather disliking the symbol not being on his white jumpsuit. Not sure what to make of the Phantom name but his lips twitch up into a smirk as the Observation Deck lands back in the lab. Everyone looking at him as he starts laughing a bit, Danny speaking after his dad gets the portal closed, “guys, Phantom-”, snickers, “-Phantom rhymes with Fenton. It’s a damn pun”, Danny wheezes into his hand eventually being joined by Sam, Tucker and Jack in laughing. Maddie smiles sweetly and ruffles Danny’s hair some, enjoying seeing the mirth in his blue eyes. It was strange and didn’t click with her mind really, just how full of life Danny still looked; especially his eyes. Maybe it was the effect of the human body? But even the green ones seemed more alive, it was a different kind though. More energetic and rather piercing. Creepy too though, but that’s ghosts for you. Maybe all ghost were more ‘alive’ than either she or Jack had ever considered. If they just looked past the glowing and, well, everything else. 

Tucker snickers a bit more and goes to pat Danny on the back but winds up falling over when he goes through Danny’s intangible body. Tucker glares at Danny but the wide grin made it clear he wasn’t actually annoyed. Speaking as he stands back up, “of course you would have a pun for a name”. 

Maddie shakes her head, it wasn’t too surprising that his name changed. They had always theorised ghosts either forgot their living name or gained a new one. Danny seemed to do a combination of both. But at the same time, he had just said ‘Phantom’ not ‘Danny Phantom’. And having his body still was bound to affect him, ghosts were supposed to be very impressionable when they first form. So just ‘Phantom’ was probably his name. Still ‘Danny’ too, likely able to hold onto his name because of the body and being around people he knew. That thought makes her glad he didn’t just form alone in the Ghost Zone. She can’t help but wonder if he would turn out different if he had. 

Maddie smiles a little as she looks at everyone, “well, I’m going to go make supper. Jazz is probably home, there’s a lot to explain to her”, looking at Danny, “Danny, is it fine if I tell her about this, or do you want to? And the...Phantom thing?”. Maddie doesn’t miss how his eyes glint a bit at the Phantom name, pretty well confirming her theory that his name was just ‘Phantom’. Which, okay fine, that was pretty funny. Almost as bad a ghost being called Ghost. 

Danny nods at her, “that’s fine. I’m still adjusting, so that might be best”, rubbing his neck, “plus, relaxing would be seriously nice at this point”. 

Tucker snorts, “whatever you say, _Phantom_. You rested for hours”. 

Danny points at him a bit aggressively, “oh shut it, you know what your name rhymes with?!? Hmmm? _Tuck fuck_. And I don’t call whatever the Hell that was ‘resting’”. 

Jack shakes his head, “language Danny-boy”. 

Danny grumbles, “I had a point to make”. Tucker just smirks at him before he and Sam go to take off the blue jumpsuits. 

* * *

Jazz practically jumps on Maddie when she opens the lab door, “mom! What’s going on? Where was everyone? Did dad blow something up again? And I heard Danny came home sick, you didn’t give him some weird invention thing did you?”. 

Maddie smiles at Jazz and tries to make it not look slightly sad, “everyone’s okay, Jazz honey. We were all in the Ghost Zone so Danny could get better. I’m sorry we didn’t call you, but there wasn’t much time”, gesturing to the kitchen table, “sit down and I’ll explain while I make everyone food”. 

Jazz frowns, not liking that one bit. Especially claiming this ghost nonsense was ‘needed’ for Danny. Who knows what they did. But she sits down anyways and watches her moms’ back as she gets to making pasta. 

Maddie waits for a bit and watches the noddles spin around before speaking up, “you remember how dad told you Danny got the portal working?”.

“Yeah?”.

“Well, Danny left out a few things...”.

* * *

Sam and Tucker both sigh as they come up the stairs with Danny. Tucker quickly starts snicker though when Danny’s suddenly invisible. 

Jazz looks at them and glares, clearly having not believed much of anything her parents said. “Where’s Danny? Did she fill you threes impressionable heads with this too?”. 

Danny blinks, a bit confused, but looking down at himself makes him groan, assuming that he’s the only one that can see the faint outline of his body. Looking back up at Jazz, “I’m right here, _Jazz_ ”. 

Jazz rolls her eyes, “real funny Danny”, deciding to go along with it a little, “but if you _really were invisible_ unintentionally, you’d likely be subconsciously doing it as to avoid potential conflicts and dealing with my reaction”. 

Danny glares and promptly blinks back into visibility, pointing at her as he walks to sit down, “no. None of your psychobabble”. Though he smirks at her gaping mouth and raised eyebrows. Danny looks to mom as she plates everyone’s food, “how far’d you get on explaining?”. 

Jazz blinks and whispers, “I was... _wrong_???”. While Maddie nods at Danny, “everything but your name sweetie. Which, as I was saying, is related to the DP symbol and likely your Core as-well”. 

Danny pats his chest a bit absently while Jazz mutters at the table, “but I’m _never_ wrong”. Danny looks at Jazz and personally would prefer if she didn’t have a complete freakout. If anyone has an Obsession, it was her with being right. Though fine, she usually was. But... Sighing a little, “Jazz, how could anyone possibly be totally right on something that’s pretty well completely unknown”. 

Maddie nods, “there’s nothing wrong with you not wanting to believe without proof, Jazz honey”, looking slightly sheepish but smiling at Danny anyway, “me and your father definitely have to reassess some things we believed or didn’t”. 

Sam and Tucker glare at the parents, speaking in unison, “good”. 

Everyone sits in silence for a bit until Jazz shakes herself off some. Danny _did_ have a point. But that also means she needs to adjust her perceptions and actually see her parents' theories and ideas as potential truths. Plus apply them to Danny, who’s apparently dead then. Deciding she’d rather have all the information, at least the information that was more verifiable and factual rather than conjecture, “you don’t appear very dead, but I’m to guess the preservation properties of ectoplasm are to blame for that entirely. So what’s this about your name? Are we speaking a preferred name to christen a different state of existence or is it more along the lines of an ingrained natural title that is attached to you, not by choice but by nature?”. 

Danny squints at her, why did she have to rub her intellect in peoples faces? Sighing, “the latter? And it’s Phantom, Danny Phantom”. 

Jazz nods, it was ‘Phantom’ said first. Sure it was the only change technically, but feeling the need to call himself Phantom on its own first definitely inclines itself to that part being more important. She’s certain that other...ghosts -she still can’t believe she was _wrong_ on that- will just call him Phantom. Likely he was only ‘Danny’ to the living. But another aspect to this is ‘phantom’ is a synonym for ghost. Certainly there’s a reason for that. It also sounds a lot like ‘Fenton’. Smiling slightly at Danny, “that’s a play on words. Fenton, Phantom. Phantom is a ghost, a phantom. Names are often symbolic when self-chosen, which in a sense this was. Simply self-chosen by your spirit yourself. Representing an aspect of ourselves or lives-”.

Tucker snorts and cuts her off, “so his name’s representing literally what he is. That’s dumb”. Danny glares at him slightly, “you know what ‘tuck’ means? You’ve watched enough Ru Paul’s drag-race to know”. Tucker honestly looks a bit offended. 

Jazz shakes her head, no it couldn’t be _that_ simple. Especially not with Danny. Danny was never exactly straight forward and he was very fond of hidden meanings, of secondary meanings, and wordplay. “Hmm no. I don’t think that’s the symbolism. Names have power, in many myths, knowing and using the correct name for something gives you power over that something”.

Danny squints at Jazz, “are you trying to imply I’m some kind of _ghost king_?”, Danny is firmly ignoring how his Core hums a bit stronger and his ectoplasm feels kind of like it’s singing. He’s not touching the why for that with a ten-foot pole. Maddie just coughs a bit and eyeballs Jazz a little as she starts speaking again while Maddie finishes off her food. “Maybe, maybe not. Maybe you’ll just be stronger, or influential, or important in some way. You did activate a never done before inter-dimensional portal. That’s bound to have massive repercussions”, humming a bit before nodding, “and you have basically just confirmed the existence of ghosts. That is certainly influential. Who knows, maybe you’ll come to represent ghosts to humans. Being that you are obviously staying here”. 

Danny grumbles, “obviously”, before finishing off his food himself. Just what the Zone has he accidentally gotten himself into? Wasn’t dying, becoming a new creature, and piloting his own corpse, enough bullshit on his plate? No, apparently not. As he feels a chill go through his body and his breath fogs up, seconds before another one of those ghost octopuses -ectopuses?- flies up through the table and Jack runs up the lab stairs chasing another one. Danny honestly just wanted to rest and is feeling a bit of aggression over the universes possible planned bullshit for him, so he growls and punches the one that came through the table in the face. Just as the one his dad’s chasing looks at him, appears fearful, and screams. 

Tucker laughs, “oh my god, I think that one’s the same one! I think It’s scared of you!”. 

Danny growls, “It should be”, before grabbing the table ectopuses tentacles and flinging It to slam into the other one. Making both phase through the wall and back down to the lab. Jack shouting, “I got ‘em! You better run from the Fenton’s, you ectoplasmic scum!”, and running back down the lab stairs. Everyone frowns after his retreating form a bit. 

Maddie, wanting to take the attention off the whole calling ghosts scum -which she’s definitely going to have to make sure not to do now- points at Danny, “thanks I think sweetie, and I get that was pretty out of nowhere but you really should be careful with your body”, looking around, “now that everyone’s done eating, I think now’s as good a time as any for you to try fully being out”. Though squinting a little at remembering the fact that Danny had _snarled_ , and neither Sam nor Tucker seemed all that surprised by that; so clearly that wasn’t a one time thing. Behavioural changes. Expected, and she’ll just have to get used to them, hopefully none of them turn out to be negative or violent. Well, okay picking fights with ghosts is violent, but her and Jack do that so it’s not a problem really. Heck! Jack’s probably going to be proud if that becomes a reoccurring thing. 

Danny groans and sighs a little, “yeah sure, okay”. While Jack comes running back up the stairs, grinning at Danny near immediately, “they fled! Back into the Zone with ‘em!”.

Tucker chuckles, “you barely even had to rough It up this time to scare It off”. Jack tilts his head before chuckling, “oh! Was one of them the same from yesterday? They look so alike! How can you tell?”.

Sam, Tucker and Danny in unison, “It took one look at Danny/me and screamed”. Jack laughs and pats Danny on the shoulder. Danny sighing again as Jack goes through him on the third pat. Looking at his dad a bit sheepish, “sorry dad”. 

Jack promptly waves Danny off, “no worries Danny-boy! You’re new! Makes sense really!”. 

Maddie looks to the four teens, “why don’t you kids head into the living room? Would certainly be a better place for Danny’s sort of first time out of body experience”. The four nod and walk out though Danny chuckles a little, “technically second”. 

Maddie turns to Jack and speaks quietly, aiming to not be overheard, “Jack dear, I know it’s what we’re used to but neither of us should be hurling the ghost insults now. I mean, Jack, Danny might not really like that. It might bother him”. 

Jack frowns slightly, he certainly wouldn’t want to offend his boy! And it did sort of make sense. Calling ghosts scum was like calling Danny that. Oops. “You’re right Mads. Old habits die hard. But I’m sure he knows I don’t mean him?”. 

“Maybe Jack, but still. And we definitely can’t be treating Danny like his some exclusion or encouraging him to dislike ghosts. That’ll make his, er, existence harder”. 

Jack just nods, knowing his wife’s probably right. Then pointing to the living room, “alright Mads, that’s true I bet. Now let’s go see how Danny _really_ looks!”. 

Danny eyeballs his parents a little, having heard the entire conversation. Though it was clear from his friends not commenting on it that they didn’t. So obviously his hearing was better, he’d bet that it wasn’t just his hearing but all his senses that were better. Smiling at his mom, “thanks, and yeah I’d rather you didn’t with the ghost insults”. 

Sam gapes at him a little, “did you just genuinely ask someone to be considerate of you? It’s a miracle. Even if I’m sure you’re pretty much just confirming something or another”. Danny rolls his eyes and rubs at his neck, making it a bit clear that was indeed the case. 

Maddie blinks at him before smiling a little, “you heard that?”, at Danny’s nod she continues, “impressive, though _try_ not to eavesdrop on people to much sweetie”. 

Danny chuckles, “course, I’m not a creep”, giving Tucker a pointed look. Tucker just scoffs and rolls his eyes. 

Jack sticks a finger in the air, “oh right! I went and whipped up a little raw ectoplasm drink for you to try! See if it works?!?”. 

Danny quirks an eyebrow at the little juice box decorated in a green splatter design and limes, “you designed a container too?”. Jack shrugs a bit sheepishly, “got carry away”, brightening up a bit and grinning, “but it’s not named yet! So more work to be done!”. 

Danny just chuckles and shakes his head, piercing the little box with the straw and sniffing at it. Pulling his face away a little, “that is a very strong lime scent”, chuckling at the packaging, “the limes make sense now”. 

Tucker snickers at him, “you smell like lime too. I told you so earlier”, frowning slightly, “you were a little out of it though”. 

Danny rolls his eyes at Tucker snickering even more as he sips at the straw, not really liking how everyone’s just _staring_ at him to see his reaction. Which is honestly the only reason he makes a damn point to school his expression and not give away that this shit tastes _damn good_. The lime wasn’t unexpected, it being an undertone was though. It was much more lemony with a hit of Greek yogurt and white chocolate. Which yes, was weird; just a good weird. He _had_ always liked strange flavour combinations. That and, ectoplasm probably was supposed taste or feel good to ghosts. Only made sense if his Core needed to consume the stuff. Stopping to make sure he doesn’t just down the whole box, because that would defeat the purpose of schooling his expression, that and he’s noticed his Core’s doing the pulsing thing again. “Well, I think it’s doing the job? Getting the pulsing again”. 

Jack claps his hands animatedly, “perfect! Now I’m sure we could totally make different flavours or even kinds! What’s it taste like?!?”. 

Sam glares at Jack but Jazz’s is the one to speak up, “don’t you go using him as a Guinea pig, dad. Though yes, I’m sure he’d like some variety”. 

Danny chuckles and nods a little, “it is supposed to be the spice of life. Might as well be a death spice too”. Sam and Jazz shake their heads, but Maddie giggles and Tucker laughs. Jack just beams, mind running through all the potential possibilities while Danny speaks up again, “and dad, it tastes like one of those Greek yogurt cups with lemon on the bottom and white chocolate on top, with a hint of lime”. 

Maddie tilts her head, “didn't expect ectoplasm would be so complexly flavoured”. Danny nods, neither had he. Honestly he was expecting something like fizzy lime pop. 

After a while, Danny decides to just get on with the whole leaving his body thing. More than a little nervous and worried about that, but he did really need to know if he could. Plus his mom was right, it would probably be better to avoid getting into it with ghosts while puppeting his body. His real self, ghost self, was definitely more durable. Quickly finishing off the little juice box when he wasn’t being stared at as much before moving to his white jumpsuit zipper. Mentally pausing because oh shit, _his arm_. That’s just flat-out not hidable if he even pulls his arm out, none the less leaving his body entirely. Shit. 

Sam and Tucker both noticed Danny glancing at his left arm a bit worriedly. But honestly? His folks were going to know. There’s no way that was going to be truly hide-able. But also Danny’s body just.. _.laying on the ground_ , while he floated around, would be a little weird. So taking a bit of pity on Danny, Sam points at the couch, “maybe you should lay your body on the bed, y’know, make it look like it’s just asleep. Not just letting it flop onto the ground”. 

Jazz instantly nods and points at the couch, Danny acts annoyed but he’s glad. Promptly using a blanket from the couch to cover up himself, ignoring Sam and Tucker shaking their heads at him a little. Everyone else just sort of looks around awkwardly while Danny unzips and starts pulling himself out. “Keep in mind, I have no idea what’s going to happen here”. 

Jack waves him off, “no worries Danny-boy! It’s just like a new discovery! A little awkward and weird, but ultimately worth it!”. Danny just chuckles as he pulls his feet out of the suit. 

Everyone else trying not to make weird faces at the rather odd scene of Danny’s unconscious looking body under blankets with ghost Danny obviously moving around entirely underneath the blanket. With ghost Danny just sort of floating out of the foot end after a bit. 

Jazz shakes her head at him with a slight smile as he wobbles in the air, “colour inversion. I’m sure there’s some kind of symbolism there”, Looking to her parents, “didn’t you guys say something about ghosts forms being a combined representation of how they died, their personality, living body, and their sense of self?”. 

Maddie and Jack both nod while Tucker jumps up and grabs Danny’s arm to drag him down away from the ceiling. “Thanks Tuck”. Tucker replies with a smirk, “you know I’m always here to keep you grounded”. 

“Hey! Jokes are my lines!”. 

Maddie looks at Danny, she didn’t actually know what exactly killed him and she doesn’t want to upset him by asking. Heck, just thinking about the fact that he was killed and by their own invention none the less, was bad enough. But nothing about him gave away any clues. He literally just looked like Danny in his jumpsuit but colour inverted. The greenish-blue skin was the one exception, likely just the colour of his regular ectoplasm and Core ectoplasm. Green and pale blue. Logically he should have changed more, maybe he would over time? his form stabilising more properly. Like how the chest symbol formed after he fully re-stabilised. That would make sense. walking over to Danny and looking up at him a little, making a point to try getting used to the toxic green eyes. Patting his chest symbol lightly, “who knows, maybe your form will change a bit more as you go”. 

Danny chuckles a bit awkwardly, “well hopefully not too much”. 

Jack smiles, “I’m sure they’ll be cool!”, Maddie nodding quickly in agreement, “you’ll probably naturally like them, so I wouldn’t worry too much”. 

Everyone chuckles, except Danny who just looks slightly annoyed, when Danny starts spinning sideways and winds up phasing through Tucker’s grasp. Maddie giggles into her hand, “right now you might want to focus on getting control over your powers”. 

Danny grumbles, “oh I’m trying. Trust me”. 

“I don’t doubt that sweetie”. 

After about an hour, everyone pretty much agrees he should go back into his body just to be on the safe side. Danny’s just damn thankful that doing so was arguably easy, as he throws off the blankets and stands up. Maddie quickly asking, “how do you feel?”.

Sam glares, “be honest”.

Danny rolls his eyes, “I’m fine. Little stiff, but that’s it”. Everyone nods when it seems he’s being very much genuine. While Jazz glances at the clock, “okay, it’s late. Everyone should probably go to bed. There _is_ class tomorrow”.

Sam points at her, “we are staying. End of story”. Tucker just nods, making it clear he’s not going anywhere either. 

Maddie smiles and nods at them, “of course. We know we can trust you and, with everything that’s happened, that’s not surprising”. Sam and Tucker both nod and head up the stairs. Danny nods at them, “I’ll be up in a bit”. 

Pretty well as soon as the two teens disappear into Danny’s room, likely to collapse and pass out on his bed, Danny’s family all hug him a bit tightly. 

Danny pats at his dad, who’s the easiest one to touch due to his size, “yeah thanks guys”. 

Jazz promptly kisses his forehead, which he grimaces at, before pulling away, “I’m mad at you for making me the only normal one in this family, but I’m glad you’re okay”. Danny rolls his eyes and huffs, “you? Normal? Never. _I_ was the normal one. Who knows! Maybe the universe didn’t like that”. 

Jack chuckles at Danny, “we Fenton’s are a weird bunch”, while Jazz heads up to bed. That way her brother, the ghost, and their parents, the ghost hunters, could talk. 

Maddie and Jack pull away from the hug, Maddie ruffling his hair, “you sure you’re okay sweetie?”.

Danny nods, “yeah mom, I’m fine. And yes, I promise I won’t let myself get low like that again. I’m, uh, sorry for not telling you guys what happened”. 

Jack shakes his head, “nonsense Danny-boy. I can’t say I blame you. We’ve never exactly been ghost friendly”. Maddie looks from Jack to Danny and nods, “and you probably just wanted to adjust. You didn’t know you’d start degrading and destabilising”. 

Danny grumbles, “understatement”. While Maddie giggles slightly, smiling down at him a little and making a point to remember that under the skin he was white-haired and green-eyed. “Well you know we’ll help where we can and where you’re okay with it. Though your father might be a little excitable about it”, glancing at Jack with a playful smile before looking back to Danny, “just steal his fudge if he’s being too pushy”. 

That instantly gets Jack’s full attention, “what! No! Just tell me!”. The other two laugh at him a little. 

Maddie gives both of them a quick peck, Danny pulling a disgusted face though secretly glad she wasn’t bothered by the whole ‘touching a corpse’ thing. While Maddie looks at Danny and speaks, “now we’ve had a hectic day, so I don’t really expect or want anyone up before ten. And sweetie, it’s probably best if you stay home tomorrow, considering the school sent you home”. 

Danny nods and rubs his neck, “yeah it would be a bit suspicious if I showed up tomorrow looking no worse for the wear”. Jack nods with a yawn and eyeballs Maddie, who shakes her head as she answers the unasked question, “I’ll be up in a minute”. 

Danny raises his eyebrows at her after Jack heads up to bed. “What is it?”. 

“I’m sure you’re going to practice with the powers, but I’d like to give you martial arts training. We’ve always theorised ghosts were fighters and those two ectopuses we’ve seen don’t exactly disprove that. Plus you did basically pick a fight with them right out of the gate”, at Danny looking a little nervous and like he should be blushing, “that’s completely okay though. Just means I want you to be prepared”, shrugging a little and giving Danny a small smile, even if she wasn’t really super alright with the idea of him getting into fights, “and maybe Jazz’s idea on your name has some merit. Strength or power without control is worse than being weak”. 

Danny puts his hands up in a pacifying manner, “alright alright, but could we wait at least a little while? I’d rather get used to myself and let the whole ‘ghost, dead’ thing settle in”.

“Of course sweetie. Not too long though, I doubt there won’t be more ghosts coming through the portal. They won’t all be so weak and simple”, Maddie chuckles slightly, “and there’s no way me and your father aren’t going to drag you and your sister ghost hunting. Even if it will be more case by case if violent ones show up, than just going after any ghosts”. 

Danny nods, he damn well knew this situation with him wasn’t going to stop them from their profession and he doesn’t want it to. It’s their life’s work and one of their greatest joys. “That’s fine”, watching her resist a yawn, “go get some sleep mom. And stop dad from staying up all night thinking up inventions to make for me?”. 

Maddie giggles and nods, Jack certainly would do something like. She was about to say ‘you too’ but caught herself, ghosts don’t sleep after all. He was probably just going to lay in bed with his friends; again, those three were strangely close. Ruffling his hair instead, “there’ll be at least fifty new plans by the end of the week. Goodnight sweetie”. 

Danny just chuckles and follows his mom up the stairs. 

Danny’s not even kind of surprised his friends are passed out, and he knows damn well they’ll be _pissed_ if he’s not with them when they wake up. And it’s not like he really needs to move around to practice the powers. 

* * *

Danny only stays home for Tuesday and Wednesday, and he quickly brushes Mr. Lancer’s worry off when he comes in on Thursday. He’s not really surprised Sam and Tucker are stuck to him like glue the whole day. Or that his folks pester him when he gets home, after his two friends drop him off while giving his folks menacing ‘if you do anything to him we will cut you’ glares. 

Sitting at the table and eyeballing the little glass of raw ectoplasm, which is oddly pink and smells like fake fruit that’s been scented to smell like the real thing. It was kind of funny how normal this already felt and seemed. Sipping at the cup and shaking his head a little, “I’ve never eaten flowers before but I’m pretty sure that’s what it would taste like. Not a good taste, try something else dad”. 

Jack frowns slightly, “darn. Whelp! First times often don’t work out! It’s not too bad though is it?”.

Danny waves him off and sips some more, “I wouldn’t object more if offered, but I certainly won’t be ordering it anytime soon”. 

Maddie smiles, “good”, everyone pausing at screaming coming from the fridge. Danny quirking an eyebrow and laughing a little as Maddie pulls out a package of hotdogs that are green, fanged, and shrieking.

Jack exclaiming, “we made ectoweinies! Cool!”. While Jazz groans, “yeah, and now they’re inedible”. Which makes Maddie blink and look at Danny, holding them up some and raising an eyebrow at him, “do you want to try them sweetie?”. 

Danny’s honestly a bit curious and really? He ought to just get used to slightly horrifying things just being part of his afterlife. Kinda seems to come with the ghostly territory. Shrugging, “sure?”. Promptly deciding that trying to phase one out would be smarter than opening the package, rather not release all the ‘ectoweinies’. Rolling his eyes a bit embarrassed when his dad actually claps and shouts, “WOOO!”, when Danny successfully phases one out. 

Jazz shakes her head and makes a point to not grimace at Danny just biting the ghost Hot Dog in half. Was what was basically cannibalism weird? Yes, very. But he _had to_ and she wasn’t about to damage his development during such a fragil and crucial age by seeming disapproving or grossed out. Hopefully Sam would understand that too. And at least Danny seemed fine with it, it was probably natural to ghosts, so it made sense. Watching him eat the rest of the ghost hotdog and shrug, “yeah I’ll eat ‘em up, maybe muffle them or something though”. 

(Of course, later Jack would wind up shoving one in Danny‘s lunch box and thusly making Danny scare the crap out of everyone during lunch. If he was smart he would have just muffled the thing and ate it later, but he’d rather grown to love dramatics and thus just chose to eat the screaming thing then and there. A couple of people adding this incident to their recently made and growing ‘why Danny’s a cryptid’ lists.)

Back at the dinner table, Danny finishes off the glass of pink ectoplasm, while Jack throws what looks like a dog collar onto the table. Jazz and Danny leaning back a bit in case whatever happens to be explosive. 

Jack doesn’t even wait for anyone to ask, pointing at it and Danny’s neck animatedly, “I figured you having to take off the entire jumpsuit every time you want out was kind of ridiculous. So! This, if worn around the very top of your jumpsuit collar, sound be able to just extract you out with the push of a button!”. 

Danny eyeballs it, “that honestly sounds painful”. 

Jack scratches his head, “it shouldn’t be? But who knows, if it is I’ll fix that, don’t you worry!”. Maddie decides to look it over quickly just in case, before handing it off to Danny. Which he takes as a sign that it _should_ be fine. 

Jazz clears the table off as a precaution while Danny puts on the little device, letting their dad adjust the position before Danny leans/lays down on the table, that way his body won’t just flop onto the floor. Jazz jumping a little when Danny makes an echoey yelp and he seemingly just gets flung out of his body through the neck; winding up phasing right through the kitchen wall. 

Danny grumbles to himself a bit incoherently as he rights himself in the air. It takes a few tries to phase back through the wall but he manages. Shaking his head at his dad and chuckling a little before floating over to look at his corpse, “extract? More like aggressively throw me out”. 

Jack laughs, “well it works!”. While Maddie asks, “that was a more surprised yelped than pained though, right?”. Smiling as Danny immediately nods and flashes her a smile. She’s decided to not mention that his canines seem longer, he’ll notice eventually. Same with how his ears and fingers looked a little more pointy. It was good that he was developing, but if she mentions it to him he might think she’s bothered and thus try to stop or hide it. 

Everyone watching as Danny pokes at his body, “one question. How the heck am I supposed to get back in?”. 

Jack sticks a finger in the air and opens his mouth but pauses. Jazz sighing, “you didn’t think of that, did you?”. Jack closes his mouth and rubs his neck, “oops?”. 

Danny just shakes his head with a slight smile, “well, I’ve got a few hours or so, might as well work on that”. Jack practically leaps away from the table with a wide smile and runs down the lab stairs. Jazz shaking her head with a sigh. Maddie getting up and walking around the table, easily lifting Danny’s body up and ignoring how cold Its forehead is against her cheek. Danny asking, “you got me?”, with a bit of a cheeky smirk. Maddie just smiles sweetly and nods, before heading down to the lab; Danny floating down after her. 

Though both are thankful when Jack figures out a solution in just over an hour. With Danny successful getting in and out of his body multiple times. Both his parents basically insisting he wears it permanently, in case of ghosts or him picking some fight. He honestly doesn’t object or disagree. 

(Which is how he winds up startling the crap out of his friends when he ends up using it in the schools kitchen so he can fight some lunch lady ghost. Both friends a little miffed when he pretty literally drops his corpse on them. Though it ends with everyone in agreement that this was just sort of going to become a _thing_. The two friends eventually becoming very skilled in hiding Danny’s corpse in various places after he ditches it for impromptu fights. His parents on the other hand, had to get used to the fact that just because Danny’s body was in his room didn’t mean he actually was). 

**End.**


End file.
